We are pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition of our first As We Are, Might Have Been and Could Be commission: Separated by Millennia by Sarah al-Sarraj at Two Queens in Leicester this Autumn.

Separated by Millennia is a body of work exploring notions of survival, deep time, ancestry and ecology. Through a series of paintings on wooden panels, you are invited to follow the story of a mythical tribe of temporal nomads who work to preserve biodiversity, travelling not through space but through time. The paintings follow the tribe’s journey from living in relative harmony to their fracture and separation across timescapes, with the resultant Descendants and Ancestors longing for each other across thousands of years.

Al-Sarraj researches areas of Islamic astronomy, seasonality, and native knowledge systems to construct and imagine new worlds. The world constructed in this exhibition is one of these imaginaries; one where ancestral knowledge is used to steward the natural world, and power is used out of love for the other.

Situated within an ancestral assemblage where we are duty bound to those who came before us, Al-Sarraj’s work asks, how can we bring about intergenerational justice for those yet to come?

Separated By Millennia was co-commissioned by The Arab British Centre, as part of their As We Are, Might Have Been and Could Be visual arts programme, and Shubbak. Curated by Jessica El Mal.

The exhibition is presented as part of Journeys Festival International, and will be accompanied by a day of talks, workshops and an Islamic astronomy planetarium show at the National Space Centre on Sunday 20th October in collaboration with New Crescent Society

See associated events;

11 October: Exhibition opening 7-9pm as part of Journeys Festival International
12 – 25 October: Exhibition open Thursday – Saturday 12-5pm, or by appointment with Two Queens Gallery outside of these times
20 October: National Space Centre Activity Day, from 11:30am-3:30pm (ticketed)
25 October: Leicester Cultural Quarter Late Opening, from 5-9pm (time TBC)