Regarding Land at Dalhousie Art Gallery

Ali Cherri, The Digger, 2015. Single-channel video, 24 mins, colour, sound, Arabic and Pashto with English subtitles. Courtesy of the artist and Imane Farès Gallery, Paris.

Regarding Land

Curated by Amin Alsaden

September 19 – November 23, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 18, 6 – 8pm (In partnership with Prismatic Arts Festival)
Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax

Dalhousie Art Gallery is pleased to present Regarding Land, a compelling new exhibition featuring video works by Canadian and international artists connected to Southwest Asia and North Africa. The exhibition offers layered perspectives that move beyond conventional portrayals, considering how contemporary art engages the bonds that connect people to place.

Grounded in personal and collective experiences, of local inhabitants and diasporic communities alike, the artists employ poetic visual language to reflect on how histories of migration, resistance, and survival shapes belonging. They also gesture toward responsibility and care for the land itself, as well as for one another. Through these works, Regarding Land opens a space to reflect on how we inhabit the ground beneath us, and the histories and futures it carries.

About the Curator: Amin Alsaden is a curator, scholar, and educator whose work focuses on transnational solidarities and exchanges across cultural boundaries. With a commitment to advancing social justice through the arts, Alsaden’s curatorial practice contributes to the dissemination of more diverse, inclusive, and global narratives by challenging hegemonic knowledge and power structures. His scholarly research examines modern and contemporary art globally, with specific expertise in the Arab-Muslim world and its diasporas. He has lectured and published widely, and regularly serves as an invited speaker, critic, and jury member at various art, curatorial, and design programs.

Marwa Arsanios, Who Is Afraid of Ideology? Part 4: Reverse Shot, 2022. Single-channel video, 35 mins, colour, sound, English and Arabic with English subtitles.

As part of Dalhousie Art Gallery’s commitment to critical artistic inquiry, cross-cultural dialogue, and public engagement, the exhibition will be accompanied by programming in partnership with Nocturne: Art at Night Festival, Prismatic Arts Festival, the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, and NSCAD University. Program details will be posted on the Gallery’s website and social media channels.

About Dalhousie Art Gallery

Dalhousie Art Gallery, established in 1953, is the oldest public gallery in Nova Scotia and is located in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people. As both a university-based and public-facing institution, the Gallery presents innovative exhibitions, public programs, and publications that foster visual literacy, critical engagement, and interdisciplinary exchange. With a permanent collection of over 1,400 works, the Gallery supports research, teaching, and public appreciation of historical and contemporary art, and aims to make art relevant and accessible to diverse audiences on campus and across the broader community.

Admission to the Gallery and our programming is always free.

Dalhousie Art Gallery
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Halifax, NS B3H 4R2
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Accessibility:
Dalhousie Art Gallery is fully accessible. For more information, please visit our website.