The View from Here: Contemporary Art from the Middle East and North Africa

The View from Here: Contemporary Art from the Middle East and North Africa

11 October 2025 - 1 March 2026

Presented in collaboration with the Oriental Museum, Durham University, this new exhibition at Leighton House showcases emerging creative voices from the MENA region exploring heritage, memory and identity through assemblage and collage.

This exhibition is part of the celebratory programme of 100 Years of Leighton House, which marks the museum's anniversary as a public museum, under the governance of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Victorian meets contemporary 

In 2020 the Oriental Museum, Durham University embarked on a project to form a new collection of digitally-born and digitally manipulated artworks by artists from the Middle East and North Africa diaspora. The project resulted in the acquisition of around 60 works which reflect the modern world and the evolving cultures of these regions. The View from Here brings together highlights from this new collection. 

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) encompasses a diverse array of cultures and landscapes – likewise the artworks in this exhibition have no single viewpoint or style. What they share though, is a concern with identity and tradition and how to reflect on and communicate that in our current times. Artists like Adnan Samman and Rabee Baghshani do this through digital collage layering together historic and contemporary images to find new meaning, while artists like Maliheh Zafarnezhad and Hani Amra use photography in unexpected ways to challenge our perceptions.

Presented together in The View from Here, these works invite the viewer to reflect on how the meaning of art from the MENA diaspora shifts when created or displayed outside its place of origin, and how context shapes both what is seen and how it is seen.

Plan your visit

The View from Here: Contemporary Art from the Middle East and North Africa

From 11 October 2025 to 1 March 2026

Included within admission ticket

Leighton House | The Verey Exhibition Gallery

Open Wednesdays to Mondays, 10am- 5:30pm (last entry 4:30pm)

Plan your visit

Acknowledgements

This exhibition has been supported by the DCH Foundation, the museum's Exhibition Circle and The Friends of Leighton House. The promotion and outreach for the programming of 100 Years of Leighton House has been supported by the CORA Foundation.