Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany

Lisson is pleased to announce that Dana Awartani will be included in Nach Damaskus … Karl Ernst Osthaus und die islamischen Künste, opening at Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany, on 6 November 2026. The exhibition explores the museum’s historic collection of Islamic arts and its enduring influence on European modernism, design and architecture.

Bringing together approximately 340 objects, the exhibition presents a rarely seen collection assembled by museum founder Karl Ernst Osthaus from 1898 onwards, through his travels across the Ottoman Empire, North Africa and West Asia. Gold-glazed ceramics, richly decorated textiles, an illustrated Šāhnāma (Book of Kings) and an internationally significant collection of Hispano-Islamic tiles are shown alongside works of European modernism and design, tracing the cultural exchanges that shaped the Folkwang ethos.

Dana Awartani contributes a contemporary perspective through her textile installation Come, Let Me Heal Your Wounds. Let Me Mend Your Broken Bones, As We Stand Here Mourning (2019). Made from silk, the work introduces questions of cultural memory, historical transmission and a female perspective into the exhibition, which also critically examines the Eurocentric frameworks through which Islamic arts have been collected and interpreted.