Exhibition of the eleventh ABN AMRO Art Prize winner
At the beginning of this year, the eleventh ABN AMRO Art Prize was awarded to Mounria Al Solh. As part of the prize, she created an exhibition and installation of the same name with Nami Nami Noooom, Yalla Tnaaam in which she looks back on her youth in a civil war-ravaged Lebanon. Al Solh (Lebanon, 1978) is a storyteller who connects her personal history as a woman and migrant from Lebanon with current themes such as identity, politics and feminism. She works with various materials. She embroiders and paints, works with language and music and makes magazines, installations and performances. Moreover, she works both alone in her studio and together with others.
Lebanese Civil War
In Nami Nami Noooom, Yalla Tnaaam, Al Solh returns to her childhood in a civil war-ravaged Lebanon. During bombing raids, her mother allowed her to cut holes in her pajamas in the evening and then sew them shut with a needle and thread. This calmed her down when explosions kept her awake. For this exhibition she repeated this meditative act together with a group of women – partly with a migration background – in the Netherlands and Lebanon. She incorporated the pajamas into a new installation that can be seen for the first time in H’ART Museum.
Al Solh drew inspiration from dreams and nightmares for the paintings and drawings on paper and textiles. With the title Nami Nami Noooom, Yala Tnaaam, she refers to two Arabic lullabies from her childhood, which her mother sang for her and which she herself sang for her daughter.
ABN AMRO Art Prize
The ABN AMRO Art Prize is being awarded for the eleventh time this year. The winner will receive a cash prize of 10,000 euros and an exhibition in the H’ART Museum in Amsterdam and the ABN AMRO Art Space, as well as a publication designed by Irma Boom Office. The winner’s work will also be purchased for the ABN AMRO Art Collection.
The exhibition of Mounira Al Solh’s work can be viewed from November 23, 2023 to May 15, 2024, H’ART Museum, Amstel 51.