“... a moment of recognition occurs when a prior awareness flashes before us, effecting an instant change in our understanding of that which is beheld. Yet this flash cannot appear spontaneously; it cannot disclose itself except in the presence of its lost other. The knowledge that results from recognition, then, is not of the same kind as the discovery of something new: it arises rather from a renewed reckoning with a potentiality that lies within oneself.”
– Amitav Ghosh, Uncanny and Improbable Events

The Lost Other is a group exhibition that grapples with recognition, fragmentation, and the traces of what we have lost or obscured. In an era of seeming uncertainty, our foundations appear to ripple. The present is fragmented and tense – refusing unity and legibility. The past appears in echoes, gestures and symbols. The future is something we may have seen before.

Through obscured spaces, imagined ruins, disjointed bodies, and motifs revived from fading traditions, the works in The Lost Other offer momentary illuminations: flashes of an already-existing awareness of what was, is, or could be. At its core are questions of recognition—not as discovery, but as a re-encounter with something familiar or once known, buried beneath time, decay, and silence.

Presented in POUSH’s Rift Gallery—once part of an old perfume factory—the exhibition weaves through irregular rooms, hidden nooks, and distinct architectural features, mirroring the fractured narratives it holds.

The landscapes here are partial, the references elliptical—fragments gesturing toward a whole that remains just out of articulable reach but encounters with which illuminate a reckoning with the self. It is about the ungraspable nearness of what was, what could be, what still pulses beneath the surface and the tenuous web that ties them together.

Curation: Rotana Shaker

Artists: Ahmad Alaqra, Ahmad Haddad, Chloé Vanderstraeten, Hayfa AlGwaiz, Louise Vo Tan, MATTERS.xyz, Nefeli Papadimouli, Quentin Germain, Reema Almouh, Tara Aldughaither, Winnie Mo Rielly

This final exhibition is part of the Intermix Residency POUSH program, led by the Saudi Visual Arts Commission in collaboration with Manifesto Middle East.

30 April to 13 May, 2025.
Opening: Wednesday, April 30, 5pm to 9pm
Free registration here

Guided tours:
Friday, May 2 | 4pm – 7pm
Monday, May 5 | 4pm – 7pm
Wednesday, May 7 | 4pm – 7pm
Monday, May 12 | 4pm – 7pm

Outside these hours, visits by appointment: contact@poush.fr