Lamya Gargash
Lamya Gargash was born in the United Arab Emirates in 1982. After graduating from the American University of Sharjah in
2004, she moved to London, United Kingdom, to pursue a postgraduate degree in Communication Design at Central Saint Martins. Lamya is heavily inspired by inhabited and abandoned spaces, as well as cultural heritage in a context of rapid change. Exploring modernity, mortality, identity and the banal, she captures the beauty of human trace and the value of the mundane. Taking visual cues from interior decoration, theatre and museum exhibits, Lamya’s works layer anxiety, nostalgia and restlessness. Recently, she has turned her camera on ethnographic artefacts from the Al Ain Museum in Abu Dhabi — everyday domestic items that are nevertheless anthropologically important. Lamya was selected to represent the United Arab Emirates in its debut pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2009 with her ‘Familial’ series. In the same year, she participated in the 9th Sharjah Biennial with her ‘Majlis’ series. Lamya’s works have been included in solo and group shows around the world. Solo shows include ‘Sahwa’, The Third Line, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (2020); ‘Traces’, The Third Line, Dubai (2014); ‘Through the Looking Glass’, The Third Line, Dubai (2012); ‘Presence’, Galleria Marabini, Bologna, Italy (2012); ‘Presence’, Galerie Brigitte Schenk, Cologne, Germany (2010); ‘Presence’, The Third Line, Doha, Qatar (2008). Group exhibitions include ‘Architecture of Loneliness’, Warehouse 421, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (2018); ‘Tribe: Contemporary Photography from the Arab World’, American University, Washington D.C., United States of America (2018); and ‘Portrait of a Nation’, (ADMAF), me Collectors Room, Berlin, Germany (2016). She has participated in several film festivals: Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland; Osaka Film Festival, Japan; Amsterdam Arab Film Festival, The Netherlands; Paris Arab Film Festival, France and the Dubai International Film Festival. Lamya has won a number of awards for film and photography. In 2004, Lamya received first prize in the Emirates Film Festival, as well as Ibdaa Special Jury Award for her movie Wet Tiles. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah and the Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah. Lamya Gargash currently lives and works in Dubai.
