Curated by Dr. Omar Kholeif
“The show is my love letter to London, a city that I have continually returned to over the last four decades. It is a journey of retreat and surrender that will be familiar to millions in search of a sense of longing and belonging — of home, of sacred space. Finding My Blue Sky invites spectators to indulge in the sensuous curve of artistic endeavors that exist in their own culturally situated space of dreaming—one that allows us to sketch myriad possible routes to modernity, and with this, new ways of looking altogether.” – Omar Kholeif, PhD, curator of Finding My Blue Sky
Finding My Blue Sky is an exhibition conceived as a constellation, at once epic and polyglot, personal and searchingly political. Curated by Dr. Omar Kholeif, this ambitious group show at Lisson Gallery features over twenty artists from diverse nationalities and eras, including several making their London debut, alongside twelve new commissions. The show elides biographical and cultural difference in overlapping personal narratives: it is at one level a self-reflexive statement, akin to a diary or memoir, evolving out of Kholeif’s formative interactions and new encounters with artists, and his own diasporic heritage (as the son of Egyptian and Sudanese parents). At another, it invites viewers to participate in the creation of meaning – to dream of their own aesthetic politics. Accordingly, the parallel title in Arabic has a distinct inflection: “What is the World that you Dream of?”
Spanning both London spaces, as well as its courtyards, windows, and adjacent street corners, Finding My Blue Sky builds into a chorus of voices and histories. Its starting point was a series of conversations between Kholeif and Lubaina Himid (b. 1954), in which Himid recounted her childhood in 1960s England: daily journeys to school by bus, and the experience of accompanying her mother, a textile designer, to colonial ‘independence’ ceremonies at the embassies of African nations.
Artists include:
Lubaina Himid, Magda Stawarska, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Huguette Caland, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Simone Fattal, Luísa Correia Pereira, Laure Prouvost, Sean Scully, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Anuar Khalifi, Hrair Sarkissian, Liliane Tomasko, Celia Hempton, Sarah Cunningham, Sonia Balassanian, Souad Abdelrassould, Hugh Hayden, Paul Heyer, Susan Hiller, Leiko Ikemura, John Latham, Haroon Mirza, Otobong Nkanga, Michael Rakowitz, Chelenge van Rampelberg, Gor Soudan, Magda Stawarska, Miko Veldkamp, Barbara Walker
27 Bell Street & 67 Lisson Street
| Duration | 30 June 2025 - 26 July 2025 |
| Times | Tuesday – Saturday: 11:00am – 6:00pm |
| Cost | Free |
| Venue | Lisson Gallery (27 Bell St) |
| Address | 27 Bell Street, London, NW1 5BY |
| Contact | 4402077242739 / contact@lissongallery.com / www.lissongallery.com |