Event Information
27 March 2026
7-9pm; doors open 6:30pm
Leighton House
About the evening
To mark the inauguration of Leighton House’s exhibition The Arab Hall: Past and Present, join us for a panel discussion bringing together multidisciplinary artist Ramzi Mallat, researcher and curator Nadine Nour El Din, art historian Dr Melanie Gibson, and scholar and curator Chiara De Nicolais. Moderated by Hannah Lund, Curator of Exhibitions and Displays at Leighton House, the conversation will explore the legacies and futures of one of London’s most iconic interiors.
Taking the Arab Hall as both a material space and cultural construct, the discussion will explore its layered histories while also considering how such spaces are read, reinterpreted, and activated today. Moving between past and present, the panel will address questions of stewardship, power, and care, while exploring how this might inform future curatorial, artistic, and institutional practices beyond static heritage narratives.
Useful information
- Doors open at 6:30pm for the chance to view the exhibition, The Arab Hall: Past and Present including Ramzi Mallat’s Atlas of an Entangled Gaze commission display in the Arab Hall.
- Panel discussion runs from 7pm-8:30pm. Doors close at 9pm.
- Paid bar during the evening.
Meet the Panellists
Ramzi Mallat: based between London and Beirut, Ramzi Mallat is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores cultural identity through Levantine folklore, material culture, and collective memory. His work reinterprets native traditions, artifacts, and symbols through material experimentation, immersive installation, and moving image. Mallat was featured on Forbes Middle East's ‘30 Under 30’ list (2022), and was shortlisted for Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2024). He holds a BA in Fine Art from Lancaster University and an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London, and currently serves as a trustee of the IMOS Foundation (U.K).
Nadine Nour El Din: Nadine Nour El Din is a writer, researcher, and art historian. She holds an MA in History of Art from The Courtauld, an MA in Arts Management and Cultural Policy from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a BA in Visual Arts from the American University in Cairo. Her work focuses on the arts and cultural production of the Arab world and wider region.
Dr Melanie Gibson is a lecturer and writer on the history of the ceramics of the Middle East. Having studied Arabic at Oxford University, where her interest in the history of the ceramics of the Islamic world began, she gained her doctorate at SOAS, University of London. She is a Trustee of the Friends of Leighton House, where she first became fascinated by the history behind the creation of The Arab Hall.
Chiara De Nicolais: Chiara De Nicolais BA, MA, Lecturer, curator and specialist Middle Eastern and Indian Art, and a convenor of the Islamic Art module of the Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art at SOAS. She graduated in classics from the University of Milan and in Islamic art and architecture from SOAS; she is also an alumna of the Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art. Chiara spent ten years in the commercial sector at Christie's and then Sotheby's as a specialist and she is now an assistant curator in the Middle East department at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
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