Hunna And Hayaty Diaries Present 'I Dreamt We Dreamt of Eden': On Longing, Loss, and the Gardens We Carry

There is something quietly disarming about the title I Dreamt We Dreamt of Eden. It suggests a collective memory, half imagined, half inherited. A place that may never have existed as we picture it, yet continues to surface in our inner landscapes, shaped by longing, nostalgia, and the desire for refuge.

Presented by Hunna Art Gallery and curated by Hayaty Diaries, the exhibition brings together five artists whose practices orbit themes of memory, displacement, identity, and becoming. Rather than offering Eden as a singular paradise, the exhibition unfolds it as a psychological terrain, fragmented, shifting, and deeply personal.

The artists Alymamah Rashed, Hannah Lim, Raya Kassissieh, Samo Shalaby, and Xanthe Burdett approach Eden not as a destination, but as a state of mind. Across painting, sculpture, installation, and mixed media, their works explore gardens as sites of tension. Spaces where beauty and grief coexist, where care and destruction sit uncomfortably close.

Alymamah Rashed’s work traces Eden through cycles of spirit, body, and landscape, drawing on personal rituals and spiritual symbolism. Her practice blurs the line between inner worlds and physical environments, where gardens become places of surrender and transformation rather than escape. For Hannah Lim, Eden emerges through hybrid mythologies, shaped by Eastern and Western references. Her figures feel suspended between worlds, inhabiting a space where fantasy, folklore, and memory merge.

Raya Kassissieh approaches Eden through fragility and care. Rooted in textile traditions and Palestinian heritage, her work treats the garden as a living body, vulnerable yet resilient. Materials soften and harden, echoing the tension between protection and exposure. Samo Shalaby’s Eden is nocturnal and theatrical, shaped by ritual, scent, and memory. His landscapes feel immersive and sensory, places you enter rather than observe, where time folds in on itself.

Xanthe Burdett’s practice brings Eden back to the body. Her works blur boundaries between human and landscape, surface and depth, presence and absence. Through layered materials and fragmented forms, she explores how memory settles into flesh, how places are carried long after they are left behind.

Together, these works resist nostalgia. Eden is not romanticised, nor is it presented as something to be reclaimed. Instead, it appears as a site of negotiation, a place shaped by what has been lost, imagined, or reassembled. It is intimate rather than monumental, emotional rather than idealised.

The exhibition also reflects the ethos of both Hunna Art and Hayaty Diaries. Hunna Art continues its commitment to amplifying the voices of women artists from or connected to the Arabian Peninsula, creating space for experimentation and critical dialogue. Hayaty Diaries, led by Christina Shoucair, brings its curatorial focus on underrepresented identities and authentic storytelling into a collective framework, allowing individual practices to resonate while forming a shared narrative.

In I Dreamt We Dreamt of Eden, the garden becomes a metaphor for survival and imagination. A place shaped by care, memory, and vulnerability. A reminder that paradise is rarely untouched, and that the act of dreaming together can be an act of resistance in itself.

Cover: Hannah Lim 'The Enchanted Garden Snuff Bottle'. 2025 16x18x13cm & The Jade Window Snuff Bottle, 2023 17 x 18 x 12 cm

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