Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska’s most ambitious collaboration to date unfolds narratives of movement, grief, and imagination.
Lubaina Himid, Hollybush Gardens. Photo: Gavin Renshaw
‘Nets for Night and Day’ is the first full-scale European survey of the collaborative artistic practice of Lubaina Himid CBE RA and Magda Stawarska. The exhibition presents new and existing works emerging from a decade-long dialogue between British painter Lubaina Himid (b. 1954, Zanzibar), a leading figure of the British Black Arts Movement, and multidisciplinary Polish artist Magda Stawarska (b. 1976, Ruda Śląska), whose practice combines moving image, soundscapes, and screen printing. Conceived as a performance, ‘Nets for Night and Day’ unfolds memory as a score narrated through paintings and drawings, as well as sculpture, silkscreen printing, photography, and sound installation. Comprising over fifty artworks produced from the late 1990s to today, the exhibition takes visitors aboard ships, across carts, and into dreamscapes shaped by the artists’ collective imagination.
At the heart of the exhibition is a newly imagined presentation of Zanzibar (1999–2023). Lubaina Himid’s nine painted diptychs narrate real and imagined journeys to and from her birthplace, suspended in space and time as memories. Upon entering the West Gallery, visitors are greeted by the sound of rainfall—accumulated from England to Zanzibar, off the coast of East Africa. This sonic backdrop, composed by Magda Stawarska in dialogue with Himid, forms a 38-minute multi-channel ‘libretto’ for Himid’s paintings. A male and female voice-over narrates uneasy movements, exploring themes of memorial and reconstitution. Stawarska explains, “The process of listening is often at the core of my practice. I am interested in how sound triggers memories while simultaneously anchoring us in a place.” The sound installation conjures a site of grief—a mother’s mourning—as reflected in Himid’s voice: “Women’s tears that fill the ocean.” The result is “often heart-wrenching,” notes the exhibition’s curator, Egyptian-born British author, curator, and historian, Dr Omar Kholeif.
The themes of migration and movement remain as pertinent as ever. Whether forced or incidental, migration lingers in the public imagination. In the East Gallery, screen prints and patterns intertwine with paintings of ships and boats imbued with animism—carrying multiple lives and experiences. “The idea of bringing boats into the story became very important,” says Himid. “Boats are places of work, rescue, and living, as well as fun, tragedy, and escape spaces. I see them as temporary moving homes.” Here, spectators are invited to examine and decode patterns through paintings, photographs, and sculptures in carefully choreographed scenography, evoking the different imaginary contexts of movement and travel—whether migratory, functional, or aesthetic.
This exhibition is a reimagined continuation of Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska: Plaited Time / Deep Water, which opened at Sharjah Art Foundation in 2023. The journey continues through vessels that sleep and awaken—such as Himid’s Sharjah Carts and Stawarska’s evocative moving image works in the Jardin des Sculptures. Activated by each visitor’s lived experience, the exhibition invites audiences to perambulate around overpainted carts, wander into dreamscapes, and construct their sense of imagination.
‘Nets for Night and Day’ is the most ambitious presentation of Himid and Stawarska’s collaborative practice to date. Carefully crafted with Luxembourg in mind, a country with an itinerant and diverse immigrant community, the exhibition reflects lives lived and constructed through memory, painting, sound, and movement. It constellates into a song of longing and belonging, the contours of loss, and the power of memory to resuscitate.
The exhibition is curated by Dr Omar Kholeif, Director of Collections and Senior Curator at Sharjah Art Foundation. The exhibition will be on view from the 7th of March until the 24th of August 2025. For more information, please visit Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean.
