As part of this year’s London Design Festival (LDF), V&A South Kensington presents Not Your Martyr, a memorial display by London-based Lebanese artist Ramzi Mallat, known for his evocative engagement with memory, loss and collective resistance. This display is curated by Rachel Dedman, the V&A’s Jameel Curator of Contemporary Art from the Middle East. 

Installed in V&A South Kensington’s iconic Medieval and Renaissance Gallery from 13 September to 19 October 2025, Not Your Martyr is a commemorative memorial created in honour of the victims of the 4 August 2020 Beirut Port blast which claimed over 250 lives, displaced thousands, and devastated the city. 2025 marks both the five-year anniversary of the Beirut Port explosion and the fifty-year commemoration of the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975.  

Ramzi Mallat, Not Your Martyr, 2023. Glass, 144 x 144 x 33 cm, installation shot (5) Courtesy the artist

The work is composed of a variety of colourful traditional Lebanese shortbread pastries made of glass, called ‘ma’amoul’ (معمول) and synonymous with Easter and Eid festivities in the Levant and a symbol of unity. Drawing on a shared food heritage that transcends religious difference, the work is an ode to the intangible loss suffered by this tragedy and a celebration of the lives lost.

Ramzi Mallat says of making the work, “I specifically chose these pastries as the sole figurative element of this memorial because of the interfaith property of ma’amoul. In a region fractured by division, ma’amoul transcends sectarianism by blurring the boundaries of religious celebrations and presenting a quiet testament to these interwoven cultures.”

“Making ma’amoul has always been a communal activity that brings together multiple generations in the kitchen, especially considering how time-consuming this process is. And historically, because home ovens were rare, families would take their ma’amoul dough to local bakeries to bake them. So to distinguish their pastries, they used to carve their initials into the wooden molds, marking each batch with a personal signature. As a result, these pastries are an intergenerational symbol of tradition and continuity, heightening the emotional resonance of this memorial.”

Ramzi Mallat, Not Your Martyr, 2023,(detail 2)

“While maa’moul elicits memories of celebration and joy, their shapes which depict flowers, leaves and sunbursts also hint at a memento mori, like placing flowers on a loved one’s grave. These luminous glass pastries become vessels for oral history, memory, and identity, embodying shared personal and cultural heritage. In both their translucency and opacity, they hold what is seen and what is lost.”

“Exhibiting in the Medieval and Renaissance gallery means entering a dialogue with centuries of European memory-making and asking what gets remembered, and what gets erased. This visual dissonance is a deliberate juxtaposition. Inserting Levantine heritage among works that speak to an established Eurocentric canon becomes a discursive act of embracing multiplicity.”

“Five years later, we still have no accountability, no justice, no closure. The rubble may have been cleared, but we all still carry our grief with us like an open wound. Not Your Martyr is about giving that grief a form, however fragile, however intimate.”

Ramzi Mallat, Not Your Martyr, 2023, LDF 2025 at V&A South Kensington, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Not Your Martyr will be on display at the Medieval and Renaissance Gallery (50A) of the V&A South Kensington from 13 September – 19 October 2025. Plan your visit.

Ramzi Mallat’s internationally recognised short film titled Sobhiye (2022) will also be screened as part of V&A South Kensington’s Friday Late on 19 September from 18:30 – 22:00. Shot between October 2019 and August 2021, this video documentary is an amalgamation of the series of events which occurred in Lebanon, revealing an open-ended economic crisis compounded by corruption, negligence and inaction. The short film follows the daily life of five individuals located in Tripoli, Bekaa and Sour to shed light on the various personal hardships caused by the tumultuous socio-political crises that have unravelled in the country.