The 2025 Helsinki Biennial delivers in the sense that it unfolds in the moment and strives for harmony, but do we really want art to affect us so imperceptibly that it’s ultimately like nothing ever happened?
I wrote my review of the Biennial for the Observer.
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To take a snapshot of the magmatic undercurrent in Istanbul’s art scene, I examined the city’s subterranean energies through a gallery show, an art fair, and a museum retrospective. The story is for The Markaz Review.
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In the art world, fairs often have a meteoric rise and fall in an oversaturated market of competing events. But every so often, one lands with a quiet, deliberate weight, embedding itself in the soil of its context and revitalizing it. Vima in Limassol, Cyprus, is one such project.
Unfolding in a transformed wine warehouse near the sea, VIMA resisted the sterile polish of typical fair venues. Here, the Mediterranean wind mingled with the hum of languages, from Russian to Arabic, Greek, and Turkish, to English.
The fair was founded by three Russians who have established themselves in Cyprus – Edgar Gadzhiev, Lara Kotreleva, and Nadezhda Zinovskaya – all of whom have brought a deep well of curatorial and institutional experience from Central Asia, Eurasia, and beyond.
I have interviewed the three founders for Times of Central Asia.
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Beyond its commercial ambitions, the inaugural edition of VIMA art fair carved out space to consider Cyprus’ complex geopolitical position. I wrote a report on the fair for the Observer.
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A pale Milanese dawn draped the city in shifting greys, as visitors crossed the threshold into the space of Fondazione Elpis, a foundation created to promote dialogue with emerging geographies and young artists.
This time, it was Central Asian artists who were in the spotlight, claiming a shared history fractured by Soviet rule and global currents. The show YOU ARE HERE: Central Asia redraws a regional map, allowing artists to reimagine the borders of their belonging beyond nation-states. At the same time, it invites each visitor to relate to the works by locating its place within these stitched, erased, and reconfigured narratives.
I have interviewed curator Dilda Ramazan for Times of Central Asia.
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Very proud to have my first review in Artforum. This is a review of the installation Artificial Green by Nature Green 4.0 at the 2024 Bangkok Art Biennale by artists Bagus Pandega and Kei Imazu’s.
The work cyclically generated and erased images of a lush Indonesian rainforest, like Penelope repeatedly weaving and unraveling her shroud.
Here is the link to the review
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In the heart of Tribeca in New York, the Sapar Contemporary Art Gallery has launched a new exhibition, Beneath the Earth and Above the Clouds, which brings Central Asian narratives to the forefront.
This dual show – which runs until May 15, 2025 – features Altynai Osmo and Aya Shalkar, two artists who have been devoted to exploring female narratives in the region, and do this through works that are both steeped into tradition, and modern and vibrant at the same time.
I spoke with Altynai Osmo, a multimedia artist from Kyrgyzstan whose work weaves the threads of nomadic heritage with contemporary expression, for The Times of Central Asia.
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The Arab World Institute’s exhibition on Gaza’s archaeological treasures offers European visitors a vital glimpse into the history of the Palestinian enclave.
I wrote the piece for The New Arab
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In his new show, More than Dreams, Less than Things, at NIKA Projects in Paris, Ugay looks at the origins of image-making both literally and philosophically. Inspired by Ibn al-Haytham’s Book of Optics, the artist reanimates the ancient camera obscura, letting light seep through the book’s pages to birth abstract images: faded records of a presence.
The exhibition, which opened on March 16, explores the tension between technological progress and the way this can be disrupted by the power of imagination and poetry – eminently human things – by looking at the intersection of photography, technology, and diasporic memory.
I wrote this piece for Times of Central Asia
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It was a pleasure to contribute three pieces to the new issue of HADARA, a very stylish and elegant magazine from the Gulf. I wrote a piece on the Islamic Biennale, I spoke with the design studio Karim+Elias, and investigated the work of the young promising artist Mariem Abu Taleb.
You’ll find the magazine in newstands and the pieces online here.
My piece on the Islamic Biennale
The article on the design studio Karim+Elias
A piece on artist Mariem Abu Taleb
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I wrote for Middle East Monitor an article about “Beyrouth Ya Beyrouth”, a comic book collection in the form of a newspaper created last year by the comic book festival “Rencontres du 9e Art, Festival BD d’Aix” at Aix-en-Provence in the South of France.
The collection sees a group of Lebanese artists sharing different sides of Beirut that are less known to the media. Rather than focusing on the crises and turmoil, they aim to capture the city’s everyday life, emotions and experiences through the medium of comics.
Here is the link to the article
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Is it possible to preserve architectural heritage while working towards sustainability? And what to make of the architectural relics of the past century? Can they somehow take on new meaning rather than remaining a representation of dystopias and utopias of the past?
All these questions and more are addressed by the Uzbekistan Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Running alternate years with the Art Biennale, this is undoubtedly one of the most important architectural events in the international arena.
I have interviewed Ekaterina Golovatyuk of Studio GRACE, the architectural film that curated the Uzebek Pavillion. The piece is for Times of Central Asia.
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Naima Morelli is an arts writer and journalist specialized in contemporary art from Asia-Pacific and the MENA region.
She has written for the Financial Times, Al-Jazeera, The Art Newspaper, ArtAsiaPacific, Internazionale and Il Manifesto, among others, and she is a regular contributor to Plural Art Mag, Middle East Monitor and Middle East Eye as well as writing curatorial texts for galleries.
She is the author of three books on Southeast Asian contemporary art.
Reach out: contact [at] naimamorelli.com
