Rihab Essayh
Curated by Megan Kammerer
Visual Arts Centre of Clarington
February 8, 2025 – May 4, 2025
By Rashana Youtzy
What does it mean to endure without hardening? To persist without sacrificing softness? Moroccan-born, Montréal-based artist Rihab Essayh contemplates the challenge in their solo exhibition at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington. To our reunited future, curated by Megan Kammerer, focused on the ways in which Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) women come together and connect. This dynamic of gathering, resting, and nurturing through respite is a display central to healing, growth, and strength.
Visions of sunset hues billowing in dance, the sensation of a warm grasp in one’s hands, lyrics of devotion, supplication, and convocation. Witnessing Kammerer’s curation of Essayh’s work brought about reflections on communities coming together in the spirit of love in the face of strife. One of the first examples of softness I beheld was a woven work, forming a gradient arch between two columns at the centre of the gallery. In engaging with softness via the gossamer architectural structures, Essayh encourages patrons to consider the way in which softness is at the core of the infrastructure that supports building community. Essayh’s Untitled, 2025, and A soft dwelling for sand sisters, 2025 bring a similar energy to the Nest/s, 2024, works of Do Ho Suh, recreating his London, Seoul, and New York homes in sheer textiles. Like Suh’s explorations of home, Essayh’s use of the architectural structure evokes the idea of supportive softness, comfort, and belonging as a literal manifestation.
The aforementioned works are architectural structures composed of nylon organza and horsehair, suspended from the ceiling using threads. Untitled and A soft dwelling for sand sisters are dyed a gradient of warm tones, containing pink, orange, yellow, and green. Consider the tensile strength of the wire used for the installation: fine and thin, but capable of holding the weight of the artwork in suspension. Things are as strong as you need them to be and as much as you build them — you can always build them up stronger. This sentiment extends beyond the wires to the architectural structures and the woven panels, as it relates to the connections within a community. Consider hair refusing to break or layers of paper holding a person— these things are stronger together yet considered weak and fragile on a singular level. These supports take time and work when composed together, in layers and interconnected.
Another facet to consider is softness as an invitation, specifically within the space. Kammerer and Essayh stray from the sterility of the white cube, incorporating furnishings of comfort to enhance the gallery. Furnishings such as the drapes in the gallery with the video work, The hymn of the warriors of love, 2022, protect the screen from being exposed to external elements, bringing an atmosphere of home into the exhibition space. In this way, the drapery amplifies the comfort component, blending in with a dyed gradient to match the video. Within the space is a seating pool: cushions in organic shapes appear as sites to rest or stones to sit upon. The seating pool encourages the activity of gathering and resting among patrons. Further, the low light is beneficial for the video while also contributing to the relaxing ambience. One can rest and listen to the hymn being sung and witness the movements of the choreography. The softness can be observed in the slow movements, appearing as an external flow of the subject.
In terms of the body language of the subjects, their postures are open. The subjects in the video and within the portraits along the walls of the gallery seem to express themselves in similar movements. Having their arms stretched forward or upward eliminates the possibility of being closed off. In works such as A memory of Joy, 2025, hands are held between subjects, as each link is held within one another’s grasp. Recognizing that hand holding is a physical display of connection and of care, Essayh is overt in depicting the union formed between the subjects. Across the portraits of the Sand sister series (Muriel, 2022, Manel, 2021, and Chantal, 2021), their body language invites connection and approach.
It is critical to consider the tactile component of the artworks, including the depicted materiality of the subjects’ costumes. Within the portrait series along the walls of the main gallery, there are several figures clad in a similar costume to that featured in The hymn of the warriors of love. The components of the costume include oversized sleeves with various bands, making them bunch or balloon along the arms. There are beaded adornments in the subjects’ hair, their heads varying in covered or uncovered. The same oval armour is depicted in a sheer shield over their faces, extending into a veil or hood in some portraits. The trousers are loose and tucked into boots, sometimes with kneecap coverings. Smaller details, such as gloved hands or sacks at the waist, are also included. The costumes are reminiscent of traditional outfits worn by Moroccan tbourida cavalry, substituting the battlefield for the gallery. Essayh deftly creates folds within the pants and tunics, rendering soft drapes of cloth. The translucent textiles are also pictured within the works, the same opacity of the structures, the organza wall hanging of Flower window 1, 2024, and the costuming in the video work. The effect the sheer fabric conjures thoughts of delicates and in this line of thinking, softness. It is not the thick twill of utility wear, instead resembling the materiality of Dhaka muslin.
There are also the sounds within the space and how they relate to softness. For example, The hymn of the warriors of love is complemented by melodious singing. The song takes on the tone of a lullaby, facilitating comfort with rest. The lyrics to the song featured is woven into a panel that is placed just outside of the gallery, The hymn of the warriors of love – a poem, 2021, written in collaboration with Iranian-Canadian poet Mojeanne Behzadi. The fabric is translucent, similar to that used to create the architectural structures within the exhibition. Meanwhile, the ambient noise in the loft gallery housing A soft dwelling for sand sisters is not cacophonous, more of a brown noise to settle the mind. This facilitates relaxation through the lower frequency and bass-like sound. Considering both components of the music and the ambient sound, Essayh engages multiple senses with an approach of softness.
The juxtaposition between softness and warmth against rigid sterility is clear in the main gallery space. The warm palette forms bright focal points among the white walls and fluorescent lighting. Upon entering the loft gallery, the structure of A soft dwelling for sand sisters, 2025, is an even greater contrast to the architecture of the rustic wood interior of the barn. The beams of wood have worn their years, and it shows; however, the structure from Essayh exists as something uncanny in the space. The work appears as a found wonder, complemented by the audio of the sound piece and the wind creaking against the barn housing the VAC. In this way, there are many lives lived within the same space. The VAC had given a new life to the structure that was once used for agriculture (another chapter upon the land of Indigenous peoples). Essayh then breathes another life into the space by contemplating softness in connection with SWANA women. The structure becomes a vessel for contemplation, conversation, and connection.
As a result of adapting and evolving the space to align with the vision of a soft future, there is an aversion to detachment, to rigidity. Kammerer and Essayh approach the space with the desire to foster community. Prioritizing visual, aural, and tactile experiences of softness, Essayh focuses on softness with plurality. Considering the histories of SWANA women and the internal and external challenges that are actively being combatted, this plurality is valuable in representation and the framework from which SWANA feminisms and futurisms are approached. To our reunited future promotes the idea of being lauded for being tender and soft in a world that can calcify one with cruelty. Like the stars woven into the ceiling panel of A soft dwelling for sand sisters, this constellation of softness helps one to navigate dynamics towards a future that supersedes hardness.