Join us to celebrate the opening of our autumn exhibitions, Nour Jaouda: Matters of time and Dan Lie: Sleeping Methodologies. Discover new site-specific installations from internationally renowned artists, before dancing the night away as local favourites Noods Radio take over Spike Island with an all-night programme of DJs. Custom cocktails, local beers, and alcohol-free options available throughout the evening in our on-site café-bar Emmeline.

SCHEDULE
Exhibition preview, 6–9pm
Noods DJs, 8–11pm

NOUR JAOUDA: MATTERS OF TIME
Spike Island is proud to present Matters of time, the first institutional solo exhibition by Libyan artist Nour Jaouda (b.1997, Libya). Jaouda’s new commission at Spike Island will be her most ambitious to date and continues her ongoing exploration of the fluidity of cultural identity.

Jaouda’s new installation for Spike Island takes inspiration from the ‘Khayamiya’, an intricately patterned textile that is created through the ancient craft of appliqué and applied to the interior of tents. Functioning as both ornament and shelter, the ‘Khayamiya’ tent often serves as a temporary ‘third space’, erected within Cairo’s dense urban areas for moments of gathering, such as funerals, Ramadan rituals and Eid celebrations. For Jaouda, the intimate tentlike environment she creates within Spike Island’s monumental gallery is also a memorial space, where viewers are invited to come together, sit and reflect. Drawing on memories of botanical landscapes, sewn onto the tent are deconstructed shapes of indigenous plants and trees that have once been uprooted. Within this sheltered retreat, Jaouda constructs a space to mourn an absent landscape.

NOUR JAOUDA
Nour Jaouda (b. 1997, Libya) lives and works in Cairo and London. As she yo-yoes between both cities, her artworks limbo sculpture and painting. Jaouda’s large-scale dyed tapestries mirror the shape of prayer mats from her immediate surroundings in Cairo, incorporating steel elements both crafted by the artist and found in her environment. In this way, her work straddles personal narrative and social history; past and present.

Jaouda has a master’s degree in painting from the Royal College of Art, London. Recent solo exhibitions include: Spike Island, Bristol, UK (upcoming), Art Basel Statements (with Union Pacific), Basel, Switzerland (2024), Where, if not faraway, is my place?, Union Pacific, London (2023). Selected group exhibitions include: Poetry of the people – stemmen uit Azië en Noord Afrika, Wereldmuseum, Netherlands (2025), An Uncommon Thread, Hauser & Wirth, Somerset, UK (2025), And all that is in between, Islamic Arts Biennale, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (2025), Being Mediterranean, M.O.C.O. Panacée, Montpellier, France (2024), On Feeling, curated by Peter Davies, The Approach, London, UK (2024), and Foreigners Everywhere, 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, Venice, Italy (2024).

Jaouda’s works are in the collections of: Arts Council England, Tate, the Hepworth Wakefield and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

DAN LIE: SLEEPING METHODOLOGIES
Spike Island presents a new commission by Dan Lie in Autumn 2025. Informed by ancestral knowledge systems, spiritual ontologies and contemporary ecological frameworks, Lie’s commission will celebrate natural cycles of transformation and the interdependent exchanges that structure ecosystems. Drawing from personal experiences with death, including the loss of their father during the COVID-19 pandemic, their work highlights the intimate yet expansive coexistence of diverse beings, acknowledging our shared and continuous participation in the processes of living, dying and decomposing.

PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS
Nour Jaouda: Matters of time is produced with generous support from Foundation Foundation, The Elephant Trust, Union Pacific, and the Nour Jaouda Commissioning Circle: Alia Al-Senussi, Maria Sukkar, Lukas Zueger-Knecht, and those who wish to remain anonymous.

Dan Lie: Sleeping Methodologies is produced with generous support by the Henry Moore Foundation.