Freedom and Control
Khalid Albaih, Sandi Hillal and Alessandro Petti, Khaled Jarrar, Priya Suresh Kambli, Groana Melendez, Richard Mudariki, Bayaté Ross Smith
February 6 - March 28, 2026
Opening Reception:
February 6, 5:00-7:00PM Free
Freedom and Control explores the passport as a real and imagined object, a repository of dreams and nightmares. The document’s fundamental purpose has always been tied to freedom of movement - passports make it possible for some individuals to cross international borders and allow the State to convey and govern the permission to do so. While the the document may seem to provide a kind of freedom to its bearer, it often does the opposite. Passports from some countries carry almost no restrictions on travel, while passports from others severely constrain citizens’ ability to leave their home country.
Working in sculpture, photography, book arts and installation, the artists in this exhibition consider, critique and deconstruct this charged document to highlight its myriad uses; as a tool of State control, an indispensable object that fixes or erases national identity, or a portal through which we might imagine other ways of being in and moving through the world.
Khalid Albaih (b. 1980) is a Romania-born, Doha-raised, Oslo-based Sudanese political cartoonist, writer, and cultural producer whose work is widely known under the name “Khartoon.” His artworks have been exhibited internationally, including at Documenta 15 (Germany), MOCA Florida (USA), Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (Qatar), NIROX Sculpture Park (South Africa), and the Sydney Biennial (2026). Albaih is the author of Khartoon! (2018), co-editor of Sudan Retold (2019) and Sudan Retold 1½ (2025), and the creator of the graphic novel Professional Foreigner (2026). His practice explores power, displacement, and visual resistance across drawing, publishing, and public art. He is the founder of KhartoonMag.com and @DohaFashionFridays, and was shortlisted for the Freedom of Expression Award (2025).
Sandi Hilal (b. 1973 Beit Sahour, West Bank) and Alessandro Petti (b. 1973, Pescara Italy) The artist’s joint artistic research practice, DAAR, is situated between architecture, art, pedagogy and politics. Hilal and Petti have published a series of seminal books; Architecture after Revolution(Sternberg Berlin 2013), the book-dossier Refugee Heritage (Art and Theory, Stockholm 2021) and Permanent Temporariness (Art and Theory, Stockholm 2019), ad their artistic research practice has garnered several awards: Golden Lion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale Di Venezia, RIBA Charles Jencks Award, the Prince Pierre Foundation Prize for artistic research, the Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism at Bard College, the Loeb Fellowship Harvard University, the Price Claus Prize for Architecture.
Khaled Jarrar (b. 1976, Jenin, Palestine) explores modern power struggles and their sociocultural impact on ordinary citizens. Jarrar’s documentary The Infiltrators won several accolades at the 9th Annual Dubai International Film Festival. Selected group and solo exhibitions include; Diverse Works, Houston; Palestine Museum, Birzeit, Palestine; Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, New York; 57th Venice Biennale, Venice; Institut Du Monde Arabe, Paris; La Triennale di Milano; Brentwood Arts Exchange, Maryland; Hinterland Gallery, Vienna; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Palais De La Culture, Constantine; Pirineos Sur Festival; Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah; New Museum, New York City, The Madrid Palestine Film Festival, Madrid; 15th Jakarta Biennale; 7th Berlin Biennale; 52nd October Salon, Belgrade; Al-Ma’mal Foundation, Jerusalem; and London Film Festival, Art Bartsch & Cie, Geneva; Galerie Polaris, Paris; Gallery One, Ramallah; Ayyam Gallery London; Galerie Guy Bartschi, Geneva; Whitechapel Gallery, London.
Priya Suresh Kambli, born 1975 in Mumbai, India, is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily with photographic media and installation. Kambli received her BFA from University of Lafayette, followed by her MFA from University of Houston. Kambli is the recipient of the Howard Foundation fellowship; winner of Leica Women Foto Project Award; Creator Labs Photo Fund, Aperture and Google’s Creator Labs. She is a MacDowell Fellow and has participated in multiple prestigious residencies. Her work has been published in Aperture, Musee Magazine and Art India; been exhibited at Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Arts, and Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, and collected by Duke University, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago.
Groana Melendez (they/them) is a lens-based artist raised between New York City and Santo Domingo. Their work explores hybrid identities through self-representation. They hold an MFA in Advanced Photographic Studies from the International Center of Photography-Bard Program and has been part of residencies at Proyecto ‘Ace, Diaspora Vibe Arts Incubator, and ARC Athens. Melendez’s work is included in the collections of El Museo del Barrio, the Library of Congress, and En Foco Inc. They have had solo shows at the New York Public Library, CUNY, and ICP-Bard’s studio in Queens. They have been included in group shows at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, the Latinx Project at NYU, BRIC Arts, and El Museo del Barrio’s La Trienal 20/21, the museum’s first national large-scale survey of Latinx contemporary art. They work and live in the Bronx in New York City.
Richard Mudariki (1985, Seke, Zimbabwe) lives and works in Cape Town. Mudariki provides commentary on the socio-political environment of his homeland and beyond, often through a satirical use of iconic figures and symbols. His recent exhibitions include; Fondazione Imago Mundi, Treviso, IT, Osart Gallery, Milan, IT, Gallery Polaris, Paris, FR; 1- 54 Contemporary Art Fair, NY; Barnard Gallery, Cape Town, ZA; Sanlam Art Collection Johannesburg\Cape Town, ZA, Africa Basel, London, UK, Galerie Polaris, Paris, FR; OSART Gallery, Milan, IT; Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, ZA; South African National Gallery, Cape Town, ZA. Mudariki is the co-founder of artHARARE, a contemporary art fair highlighting the work of Zimbabwean artists.
Bayeté Ross Smith (b. 1976) is a multidisciplinary artist, visual journalist, and filmmaker.He has created public art with the Apollo Theater, Lincoln Center, the PhotoSaintGermain and Paris Photo Festivals, Dysturb, The NYC Parks Department, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. His recent public sculpture series made of sugarcane and cotton boomboxes exhibited in New York, Paris, and Benin simultaneously. He has published visual journalism projects with The NY Times, The Guardian and PBS, and his work is in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the Oakland Museum of California, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Birmingham Museum of Fine Art, and the Brooklyn Museum.