In the second iteration of our poetry commissions for Alserkal Art Month, artist and researcher Maitha Ali (@maithriarch ) presents “a rope and a neon light”. The work is a poetic expansion of journal entries collected from the past three months. This series observes moments of disenchantment that punctuate the quotidian, and whispers the question (through text, composition and visuals) of what or who might we be leaving out of our practices of solidarity. Commissioned by Alserkal Arts Foundation ——— Maitha Ali is an artist and theater maker living between Abu Dhabi and London. Her work existentially investigates urban angst, human and non-human conviviality, and erasure/silence in collective memory of domestic & built environments. She works with creative methodologies, performance art, text, photography and videography, and installation art. Her practice is a synthesis of studies in political science at NYU and in visual, material, and museum anthropology at the University of Oxford. She has performed, shown work, and delivered workshops in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, London, Oxford, New York, and Washington, DC.

Bring your boxes to store things & swap to the selfish storage show ! For storage unit details & to visit please email [email protected]. Slide 2: diagram from Continuum the Immortality principle from @sa__la__sil_ ‘s library collection Slide 3: Green Closet, Buckingham House from W.H. Pyne, History of the Royal Residences. 1819. Performance by @chicopark1 (tbc)

Winter Solstice | ضربة برد 🌟 Omnibus Theatre 2nd of January 2026 Feedback form in bio x Writer/director - Maitha Ali @maithriarch Assistant director/Dramaturg - Tatyana Nieves Brown @tatyeverywhere Dramaturg - Carlos Alejandro Páez González @carlosalejandro_paez Sound Designer - Khaled Esguerra @electra_street Sound Operator - Em March @em.f.m Cast💫 @julieyara.atz @mahitab.mahgoub @adil_.hassan @ameenaad @yellowyasmina

I keep thinking about the life this trumpet had before it reached me. France, 1939. War. Military. The siren. I found it on eBay. Marked with the initials O.R.F. The cyanotype shows an African prisoner of war from 1941, held in Malbouhans - one of the so-called tirailleurs sénégalais. Sometimes I imagine this trumpet belonged to him. Sometimes imagining feels like its own form of resistance. Letting flowers grow in the gaps of silence. Black poppies, cotton, lavender. It carries the murmur of an old song that’s been living rent-free in my head these days - Where have all the flowers gone? This piece, „A trumpet’s cry“, is part of my current solo exhibition „on Black poppies (& Other seeds)“, currently on view at @rhodestrust in Oxford. Curated by @maithriarch If you stand before it IRL - or open the image on another screen - scan the QR code, hold your camera to the work, and the sound will emerge.

my work, Goat House (2021), a performance piece about migratory histories (of people and languages) between Iran and the Gulf, currently showing in @seoulmuseumofart as part of the exhibition ‘Proximities’. Curated by @maya_elkhalil and Eunju Kim. So grateful for the curators, and for @frequentlyaskedquestion for visiting my grandma’s goat farm that one Ramadan day (almost one year ago!) and witnessing its captivating otherworldliness. First image: the goat house, made from scraps of doors and metal & wooden sheets, transformed and old, in March 2025.

need to start a photo run (not a photo walk) club ay es ay pee

Sharing install shots for @beccy.korang ’s solo show at @rhodestrust , ‘on Black poppies (& Other seeds)’, of which I had the pleasure curating. Shot in October of last year on film, developed and scanned by yours truly! What a delightful task it was to work with the estates team, and especially Gary and Mike. :) The exhibition is on until September 2026. If you’d like to schedule a visit, please contact @rhodestrust or message me to facilitate the connection. Don’t miss it!

Winter Solstice | ضربة برد - MEET THE TEAM🌟 A rehearsed reading for one night only at Omnibus Theatre, 2nd of January 2026 at 7:00PM 🎟️Tickets are just £6 (link in bio) GoFundMe link is also in bio!!! (slide 3) 📸Nino Consorte / Seeing Things - Alserkal Arts Foundation, 2024

Winter Solstice | ضربة برد “How do we speak candidly to our friends in a landscape of censorship?” Written and directed by Maitha Ali, Winter Solstice | ضربة برد is a gathering of five friends in the [redacted] desert to celebrate the [redacted] holiday of Shab-e Yalda, marking the longest night of the year, coinciding with the Ursid meteor shower. This play is an unraveling of Ameera and Diana’s friendship, marked by estrangement and identity crises — and interrupted with bad poetry. Shooting stars become the vehicle to start, stop, censor, and manipulate the trajectory of their stories and the shimmering sky above carries them through reckonings and answers - or maybe there lack thereof🌟 2nd of January 2026, 7:00PM, at Omnibus Theatre as a part of their Engine Room: Next Page Season💐 🎟️Ticket link is in bio x gofundme page is also in bio if you’re in a giving mood! 📸 @arnoldbarretto

A little over a month ago, I had the honor of opening the first show I curated, a solo show for the ever-so-brilliant Rebecca Pokua Korang @beccy.korang ! “on Black poppies (& Other seeds)” was the culmination of ten months of work, under the @rhodestrust ’s first global artist residency. Rebecca and I instantly clicked when she started the residency in Jan 2025, roaming the city of Oxford together, unpacking every element and aspect of the context & roles which we were inhabiting; from problematizing the open call theme “Radical Joy”, unpacking the colonial legacy of the trust, to agreeing vehemently with one another that now’s the time to unravel (capital I) institutions’ obsession with “legitimate” archives (I.e. colonial, provenance methods, bound within inaccessible institutional structures and paywalls). I can say so much about this exhibition and Rebecca’s work, from its commitment to critiquing and reclaiming commemoration culture(s) (cough cough, red poppies in England), to gently reminding us that joy does not replace grief but is held by its side, to insisting that histories of slavery, colonialism, and dispossession (palpably present in your world wars) have their ripple effects of police brutality and structural/systemic racisms playing out until this very day. Thank you to everyone who’s been there to support, including the Rhodes House team and especially the colleagues, friends and family members who were so gracious with their time and effort. Here’s to Rebecca’s second solo show. Thank you for teaching me so much, and for your (preciously cradled) friendship and collaboration 🩶 🌹 OXFORD/UK FOLKS: this show is open in Rhodes House for the entire (entire!!) 2025-2026 Academic year! Please reach out to @rhodestrust to schedule your visit. They will be so delighted to welcome you.

‼️RSVP THROUGH ME OR @offthegrid165 TO RECEIVE LOCATION AND ATTEND‼️ Using some shots from a reading back in June at @baytalmamzar * to invite you to a reading next weekend (!) at @offthegrid165 🩶 • Readings from the Margins: a collective reading & discussions of plays and poetry, led by collaborators & friends Maitha and Kawthar (@kawrage 🦋). • Sunday, November 16 at 3PM. The ever-generous @rjcrookshank will be hosting us at Off the Grid! • Dm me or @offthegrid165 for more information and to join. *first image: sneak peak! (cc @kawrage )

Just woke up from a nap in the sun and thought a lot about الرحيل | Departure. So here’s a little throwback from Sep-Oct 2022 🤍 written by the brilliant @reemenhali and directed by the wonderful @joannasettle Photography by Waleed Shah, Courtesy of NYUAD Art Center