Join ancient historian Reuben Hutchinson-Wong for a walkthrough of Cemetery of Martyrs - the first solo exhibition in a major cultural institution in the UK by artist Dala Nasser (b.1990, Lebanon). The exhibition features a large-scale sculptural and sonic installation that invites audiences into a collective space of mourning and remembrance.

By using the process of frottage (the technique of taking a rubbing from an uneven surface), Nasser transforms the gallery space into a symbolic graveyard, creating a collection of charcoal rubbings collected from the graves of seminal artists, writers, poets, filmmakers, historians and journalists from across Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and England. Representing cultural figures from the mid nineteenth century (specifically the Nahda, Arab Renaissance) to the present day, the work honours those who fought for independence and freedom in times of political dominance and occupation and whose art, writing, and intellectual contributions have shaped the notion of true sovereignty in Western Asia.

In this walkthrough, Reuben Hutchinson-Wong will explore remembrance and forgetting in an ancient cemetery in southern Egypt, Qubbet al Hawa. He will consider how these interrelated processes established, negotiated, and maintained connection to place through the ongoing use of tombs as sites of new burial. Reuben will talk about how remembrance and forgetting went hand in hand with how people related to others in their communities, environment, and landscape.

Reuben Hutchinson-Wong is an Egyptologist, currently a third-year PhD student at the University of Birmingham. He is a recipient of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership grant. His research looks at community practices of using tombs as sites of burial in ancient Egypt and ancient Egypt’s reception in nineteenth-century Aotearoa (New Zealand), with publications in the journals Aegyptiaca, Journal of New Zealand Studies, and New Zealand Geographer.