You are invited 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
Sleeping Methodologies is a new commission by Dan Lie that explores how crisis and fatigue can become catalysts  for transformation, marking a new chapter in the artist’s practice. Departing from a well-established methodology of producing monumental installations, the exhibition is premised on the humble gesture of creating an atmosphere that invites visitors to slow down, rest and reflect. You are encouraged to notice what sensations, memories and feelings surface as you move through the gallery.

While still informed by Lie’s ongoing research into mortality and renewal, non-human ecologies and ritualistic ontologies, Sleeping Methodologies begins from a deeply personal place: the artist’s grief and fatigue, and their admitted need for a clean slate. From a state of exhaustion and burnout, Lie has created a total environment bathed in
yellow light and populated with objects and ‘other-than-human’ companions that invite both body and mind to pause, drift, feel, observe, engage and disengage. It is an anti-monumental provocation to take a step back and consider: What would happen if I stopped?

The exhibition is shaped by research in Bristol and beyond, including visits to archaeological sites such as Stonehenge, engagement with Spike Island’s creative communities, and a series of public dialogues titled Honest Grieving for a Better Life, which took place at Spike Island in May.

Produced onsite with natural materials that will be repurposed or returned to the earth after the exhibition, the installation is made of chairs wrapped in cotton dyed
with tea and coffee, large stones keeping watch over mattresses filled with hay and lavender, and a garland of popcorn that traverses the gallery.

PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS
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, Judy Idriss, Djenaba Lewis Chamberlain, 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.