Afterall published this survey of Hazem Harb's practice, written by Melissa Gronlund and posted on 10 September 2024 under the title 'Hazem Harb: My Heart Is Still in Gaza'. The piece traces two decades of the Gaza-born, Dubai- and Rome-based artist's work, from his early expressive paintings through to the archival collage practice for which he is now known.
It describes his 2004 performance EXIT, in which Harb wrapped himself in gauze until 'trapped and bound, corpselike, in the white fabric', and follows his shift toward archival collage in the 2015 series Bauhaus as Imperialism and the exhibition The Invisible Landscape and Concrete Futures at Salsali Private Museum. Later bodies of work discussed include Power Does Not Defeat Memory (2019), Paradise Lost (2020) and the 2021–22 presentation Temporary Museum. For Palestine. at Maraya Art Centre, alongside his 2024 charcoal series Dystopia Is Not a Noun and the Gauze exhibition at Tabari Artspace, in which fabric is worked into what the piece calls 'ghostly wraiths'.
Gronlund places this more expressionistic recent turn against the backdrop of events in Gaza since October 2023, citing Harb's own account of the work: 'Everything I had I put into them.' The essay reads Tabari Artspace's presentation of Hazem Harb's Gauze exhibition as an extension of the archival and material concerns traced throughout this account of his career.
