by Eve Rogers // Nov. 28, 2025
On a cold November morning in Berlin, artist Dana Awartani’s voice comes through as a warm and welcome antidote to the early winter gloom. Speaking from her home in Saudi Arabia, her measured cadence carries the contemplative quality that defines her practice, which is rooted in the meticulous discipline of traditional craftsmanship and the emotional charge of cultural memory. Born in Jeddah to a Palestinian-Saudi family and trained at Central Saint Martins and the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, Awartani has shaped a visual language that blends geometric precision with a sensitivity to the fragility of inherited knowledge.
At the Goodwood Art Foundation’s ongoing exhibition titled ‘Erasure’ she presents ‘I Went Away and Forgot You. A While Ago I Remembered. I Remembered I’d Forgotten You. I Was Dreaming,’ a work whose title is drawn from a verse by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, a meditation on exile and the fading essence of home into a mere and distant recollection. The phrase aptly reflects the atmosphere of her work, which considers how tangible cultural histories slowly slip from everyday life until they survive only as impressions. The installation, composed of sand tinted with natural pigments and arranged in carefully measured geometric tile formations, conjures an ephemeral beauty that feels both enduring and vulnerable.
Awartani’s practice is sustained by close collaborations with craftspeople whose techniques risk disappearing under the pressures of industrialization, displacement and conflict. Through these relationships and her own long immersion in traditional methods she constructs a contemporary vocabulary that honors devotion, materiality and the role of craft as a quiet form of resistance against cultural erasure.
Dana Awartani, portrait // Courtesy of the artist and Ali Alsumaiyn
Eve Rogers: I’d like to begin by touching on the theme of erasure. Your work has often engaged with ideas of destruction—could you speak about that and how your piece relates to the exhibition’s theme?
Dana Awartani: I think it’s one of the first pieces I did that looks at cultural erasure and destruction. It’s inspired by the old town in Jeddah, Al-Balad, the historic center with traditional, beautiful homes. Since the introduction of cement, people disconnected from vernacular architecture and built modern homes that made no sense to the local history. Al-Balad was neglected with houses destroyed or falling apart.
I wanted to create an installation that looks like tiles but is visually Middle Eastern, using sand dyed with natural pigments. I wanted to destroy it methodically, purposefully, meditatively, slowly—reflecting what they were doing there. When I showed it, people asked, “Why are you destroying the sand? It’s so beautiful.” This is how I felt about our historic buildings.
ER: I’m curious about the careful, meditative approach behind the destructive element of the work. Do you see spirituality playing a significant role in your practice and how do repetition and devotion shape the way you work?
DA: I think it is intrinsically part of the work. When I went to the Prince’s School for my Master’s, it was very different from Central Saint Martins. The focus was on craftmaking and tradition making, not on expressing myself as an individual. It was about humbling yourself and fully immersing in crafts that have existed for thousands of years. This immersion is meditative.
In Islamic craft traditions the work is repetitive. Some people see craft as a form of prayer. In the Sufi tradition it is called dhikr, remembrance of the divine through making. I once worked with craftsmen in Morocco who made hundreds of tagine pots every day. For them, this was their sacred practice. Sacred geometry too is rooted in nature and transcends religion and borders. Much of my work begins with geometric drawings that I do by hand with a compass and a ruler. My geometry professor used to say that if you are stressed or anxious, you cannot do geometry because it requires complete immersion, which is true. This focus is something that applies across many craft traditions.
Dana Awartani: ‘I Went Away and Forgot You’ // Courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery
ER: How has embracing ancient geometries and traditional craft practices influenced your work and how do you see them fitting into a contemporary art context rather than a purely historical or religious one?
DA: At Saint Martins you’re given your studio space and left to your own devices. How you make what you make, the materiality or medium is not important. It’s about critical thinking and developing a concept, which is important to me. At the Prince’s School I was the only artist on the course. They said we do not care about your voice or message; you’re here as a craftswoman. For the first few years after graduating I had to un-brainwash myself, spending years perfecting my craft, studying with a master in Turkey and immersing myself in traditions. I eventually brought the two together, using traditional aesthetics and crafts in a contemporary way. I also felt a disconnect from my art education in Saudi Arabia, which focused on Western canons, and wanted to create a contemporary language rooted in Middle Eastern traditions rather than being stagnant in the past.
ER: You mentioned working closely with craftspeople. Beyond the practical necessity is your collaboration with them also a way to honor and revive potentially endangered techniques? Do you see this as a form of cultural resistance?
DA: For sure. Some places, especially in the Global South, craft is still very predominant in daily life. In India, for example, cotton industries allow craftsmen to make a livelihood. But globally, support and appreciation for craft have reduced. Machines can do things faster, cheaper but it’s never the same. So much craft knowledge is passed down orally or intergenerationally. One of the craftsmen I work with does darning on silk. He learned from his father and grandfather but his children now do not want to continue because it doesn’t pay as much.
In the Middle East, conflict and displacement force craftsmen to leave their homes and so they cannot continue their traditions. In Syria, before the civil war, over 20 workshops did traditional mother-of-pearl inlay in Damascus; now only one remains. When they move to Europe they must take any job for survival and then the heritage is lost. I support craftsmen by hiring them full-time or commissioning work, like with Syrian refugees in Jordan. Nothing is mass-produced and I don’t make duplicates. It’s slow, challenging but ethically sustaining craft and its traditions is deeply rewarding.
Dana Awartani: ‘I Went Away and Forgot You’ // Courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, photo by Ron Amstutz
ER: Your mention of silk darning reminds me of your work in Venice, which was like both a testimony to destruction and a way of honoring the tradition of repair. I know you mentioned earlier that you use natural pigments and materials. Is there traditional or cultural relevance to the materials and pigments that you choose?
DA: Yes, there’s a lot of importance to materiality. For that specific work I was thinking about natural dyes in India where the main pollutant of rivers is chemical dyes from the textile industry. All the leftover chemical dyes are thrown into rivers and are toxic, whereas natural dyes, which were originally used, are not harmful whatsoever. The people I worked with in Trivandrum, South India, forage locally for medicinal herbs and spices to create healing dyes. Leftover dyes are used as biofuel or returned to the forest and it’s completely safe.
Even in Gaza, people are building traditional clay ovens and mud adobe structures to survive winter, using whatever resources they have. This ancient knowledge is a form of survival and a way of resisting dependence on machines and capitalism. Historically, craft has been a form of resistance, such as suffragettes making patchworks and banners or Gandhi advocating spinning and weaving cloth in response to British industrial domination. Handmade work becomes a political and ethical gesture connecting survival, tradition and resistance.
Exhibition Info
Goodword Art Foundation
Group Show: ‘Erasure’
Exhibition: Nov. 22, 2025-Apr. 12, 2026
goodwoodartfoundation.org
New Barn Hill, Chichester PO18 0QP, UK, click here for map
