Women artists, women-led galleries in Fictional Landscapes group show

Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

Fictional Landscapes, an exhibition showcasing 28 women artists across five women-led galleries and guided by three female curators, is set to make its debut in Dubai on November 9. Running through December 15, the show will be opening at The Foundry, Boulevard Crescent, Downtown Dubai. Fictional Landscapes brings together artists from the UAE, Russia, Iran, Armenia, India, Pakistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Iceland, USA and more. The artists, who live and work across the globe, look at landscapes — urban, imagined, natural and artificial - as a reflection of personal and collective experiences. The exhibition is curated by a team including Nadine Khalil, Alisa Bagdonaite, and Serafima Kostrova.

The 28 artists present narratives, each bound by the collective lens of womanhood. The female perspective takes centre stage at the exhibition; it aims to celebrate resilience, beauty, and strength in every stroke of paint and every grain of sculpture. By using the theme of landscape, the artists strive to transcend current geopolitical boundaries and address critical social motifs; it makes their explorations an offering of particular visions in an ever-changing world.

Through a diverse range of media, including textile, video, painting and performance, Fictional Landscapes explores how environments extend beyond physical terrains to embody mental and emotional spaces shaped by passing memory, identity, and migration. The artists negotiate their bodies and the spaces around them, delving into issues such as patriarchal violence and political reality, while also reimagining relationships set between time, place, and power.

A key objective of Fictional Landscapes is to emphasise the representation, visibility, and valuation of female work in the contemporary art world. It highlights the persistent challenges faced by women artists and advocates for greater recognition, equity, and fair representation in the global art market. Many of the artists in Fictional Landscapes have gained international acclaim through prestigious events such as the Venice Biennale, Sharjah Biennial, and Gwangju Biennial. The show features both established and emerging international artists, including Anna Afonina, Maryam Ashkanian, Mary Badalian, Anna Fobia, Anna Komarova, Liudmila Konstantinova, Taisia Korotkova, Olya Kroytor, Lilia Li-Mi-Yan, Katerina Lukina, Oksana Mas, Almagul Menlinbaeva, Irina Nakhova, Lisa Olshanskaya, Alexandra Paperno, Vasilisa Palianina, Lidia Russkova-Hasaya, Diana Shliman, Sofya Skidan, Olga Tatarintsev, Fatima Uzdenova, Irina Zatulovskaya, and Asia Zaslavskaya well as UAE-based artists Richi Bhatia, Olia Breva, Sophiya Khwaja, Sara Masinaei, and Fatima Uzdenova.

  The sound of drone by Anna Afonina.

Through their creations, they attempt to redefine their environments, offering bold and thought-provoking perspectives that challenge traditional boundaries and evoke a connection to both self and the environment. The women-led galleries involved in the exhibition are Alisa Gallery (UAE), a curator-run space that has operated in Dubai since 2023. It is committed to advancing ethical approaches to art creation and organising impactful and conceptual exhibitions, showcasing a diverse array of artists specialising in both analogue and digital forms across multiple mediums.

Nadya Kotova Gallery (Belgium) operates in the primary market and represents international contemporary artists. It was founded in 2012 and is located in Antwerp, Belgium. Its mission is to stimulate intercultural dialogue and to create a bridge between the Post-Soviet art ecology and the European art scene. Sardi Gallery (Armenia) was established in 2021 in Yerevan, Armenia. It is a platform that presents the works of contemporary Armenian artists, serving as a representative of Armenian national identity in the global art scene.

Syntax Gallery (UAE) was established in 2019 and it has been the gallery’s mission to promote Post-Soviet contemporary art globally. pop/off/art is one of the leading contemporary art galleries in Russia. It represents artists of Russian origin, as well as international artists, with a focus on Post-Soviet creators from Eastern and Central Europe. “For all the celebration of a select few women in art (a long time coming),” opines medium.com, “collectively the art market is still deeply biased against women and there is a culture of silence. From the massive gender pay gap to discrimination and the even huger gender praise gap, we have sure a problem.”

“Women artists are underrepresented in galleries and museums,” says fiction writer Amy Maroney. “It’s about 70 percent men vs. 30 percent women. And their work still doesn’t fetch the prices that the art of men commands,” she adds, quoting research. The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), has some damning statistics. “The truth is,” it says, “women have never been treated equally in the art world, and today they remain dramatically underrepresented and undervalued in museums, galleries, and auction houses. Counting and quantifying won’t solve discrimination, but statistics are useful for understanding the scope of the problem.”

Between 2008 and mid-2022, it says, art by women accounted for only 3.3 per cent of all auction sales. Women make up a majority of professional art museum staff, but despite recent gains, they remain underrepresented in leadership positions. Artworks by women account for only 39 per cent of gallery sales. Between 2008 and mid-2022, art by Black American women comprised just .1 per cent of all auction sales. A survey of the permanent collections of 18 prominent U.S. art museums found that the represented artists are 87 per cent male and 85 per cent white. But the good news is that exhibitions like Fictional Landscapes are happening to set things right.