2025 – 2026 Curatorial Fellows Exhibitions presented at FADA Gallery
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2025 – 2026 Curatorial Fellows Exhibitions presented at FADA Gallery
On February 12, 2026, ARAK Collection presented two concurrent exhibitions at the FADA Gallery, developed as part of the ARAK Collections Curatorial Fellowship (2025-2026). Curated by Soukaina Aboulaoula and Max Diallo Jakobsen, the exhibitions offered distinct yet complementary approaches to contemporary African artistic practice.
The opening evening drew a full and diverse audience, including students from the University of Johannesburg, local schools, art practitioners, and the wider Johannesburg community. Guests were welcomed by the Dean of FADA, Professor Federico Freschi, and Dr Farieda Nazier, Curator of the FADA Gallery, alongside representatives from the ARAK Collection, including Founding Director AbdulRahman AlKhelaifi and ARAK Curator Dr Sara Bint Moneer. The curators were present throughout the evening, engaging directly with audiences and fostering a lively and convivial atmosphere across the space.
There Are Other Worlds (They Have Not Told You Of), curated by Aboulaoula, brought together a group of artists working across abstraction to explore opacity as an aesthetic, political, and ethical position. Drawing on the writings of Édouard Glissant, the exhibition approached abstraction as a mode of relation, resisting fixed interpretation and inviting audiences into more intuitive, sensorial encounters with form, memory, and knowledge.
Running in parallel, After Material, curated by Jakobsen, examined the afterlives of materials and the histories embedded within them. Featuring works that engage substances such as textile, plywood, rubber, and newsprint, the exhibition considered how artists work “after” material, attending to its social, political, and economic inscriptions while opening up new aesthetic and conceptual possibilities.
Together, the exhibitions created a dynamic dialogue across the gallery, foregrounding two distinct curatorial frameworks while inviting audiences to move between them. The pairing offered a layered experience of contemporary practice, from the poetics of abstraction to the critical examination of materiality, and drew strong engagement from visitors throughout their run.
This dual presentation reflects ARAK Collections’s ongoing commitment to supporting emerging curatorial voices and fostering critical approaches to contemporary art through the Curatorial Fellowship.
