Expo: Traces of the Forbidden
A Research-Based Exhibition Developed Within a Doctoral Project
Curated by Maryam Najd
About the exhibition
Traces of the Forbidden is a group exhibition curated by Maryam Najd and developed within an ongoing doctoral research project. The exhibition examines conditions in which visibility is regulated and speech entails risk, taking the political situation in Iran as a central point of reference.
Rather than treating repression as a theme to be represented, the project understands it as a structural condition that shapes artistic production, presentation, and reception. When visibility is restricted and expression is subject to control, form itself is affected by constraint. Works may operate through partial disclosure, indirect articulation, displacement of meaning, or deferred visibility.
These strategies are not stylistic devices but responses to regulated environments. The exhibition considers how artistic practice negotiates such conditions and asks what modes of persistence or resistance remain possible when expression is limited.
The opening takes place on 20 March, coinciding with Nowruz (Persian New Year). Marking renewal and transition, the date situates the exhibition within a context in which cycles of repression and resistance continue to redefine what it means to appear, to speak, and to remain present.
About Maryam Najd
Maryam Najd is an Iranian-born visual artist based in Antwerp and a doctoral researcher at PXL-MAD School of Arts and Hasselt University. For over three decades, her artistic practice has engaged with social, political, and cultural questions, with particular attention to issues of visibility, censorship, and power.
Najd studied Persian miniature painting before completing her formal training in painting at Alzahra University in Tehran. In 1992, she moved to Belgium to pursue a Master of Fine Arts at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. She later participated in international residency programs, including ISCP in New York (2010) and Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (2011–2012).
Her work has been exhibited internationally and is represented in major public collections, including M HKA (Antwerp) and Mu.ZEE (Ostend). She is currently undertaking doctoral research examining the relationship between art, politics, censorship, and visibility.
Practical information:
- Opening: Friday March 20th, 17h00 - 22h00
- Exhibition dates: Monday to Friday, 14h00 - 18h00
- Film Screening & finissage: April 3rd: 15h00 - 19h00
- Location: Refugiehuis, Maastrichterstraat 100, 3500 Hasselt
Image: Maryam Najd, This Is Not a Flag, from the Non-Existence Flag project (ongoing series)
