From the clinking of gold bangles stacked along a woman’s arm to the sharp tap of high heels against the floor, the air hums with energy and is perfumed with the smoky scent of bukhoor, a traditional Middle Eastern incense, henna, or the deep notes of the fragrant oil, Arabic oud.
Though this is only a glimpse of what it feels like to be surrounded by North African and Arab women at a wedding, a henna night, or even in the intimate space of a beauty salon.
In these intimate spaces, which have long been held as sacred and private, women come together to celebrate, to carry on their rituals, and to move freely within the safety of walls that shield them from intrusion. In these rooms, they create a universe of their own, a space rooted in heritage, memory, and belonging.
But what happens when these spaces move beyond the private realm and into institutions that have not always represented North African and Arab women faithfully, and silenced, distorted, or even sold back their history to them as appropriation?
Earlier this month, in the midst of the United Kingdom’s (UK) immigration turmoil, while streets were becoming spaces of hostility and division, another kind of space emerged.
The Horniman Museum and Gardens opened its doors to the ‘All Eyes on Her!’ Late, a one-night programme devoted to the creativity, resistance, and community of women from South-West Asia and North Africa (SWANA). Marking one of the first evenings dedicated to SWANA women in a major cultural institution in London, it transformed the museum into a site of celebration, solidarity, and reclamation.
Curated by Zeina Dowidar, co-founder of Hekayyatna, a London-based community organisation and production house, the evening brought together screenings, live performances curated by Kalam Aflam — a Paris-based association that aims to create a space for North African and Arab culture in Paris and beyond — as well as interactive workshops. Each moment invited audiences to witness how women across the SWANA region are actively reclaiming heritage and shaping futures through art, music, and storytelling.
“When my co-founder and I started Hekayyatna back in 2023, this was one of our main goals: to continuously push to reclaim our archives and our stories, and to continuously build upon our collective memories,” Dowidar told Egyptian Streets.
“Celebrating SWANA women, especially in times like these, feels more important than ever; it feels like a small step towards reclaiming the country from the grips of the extreme.”
Shaping Spaces, Shaping Selves
Beyond the concrete walls, the architecture, and the curated aesthetics, what truly defines a public space is the life breathed into it by the people who gather there, and the ways they feel, move, and interact within it.
For generations, public spaces in Europe have been instruments of inclusion and exclusion, shaped by those who occupy them. Too often, it was within these very spaces that decisions were made about who belongs and who is pushed to the margins, with migrant communities bearing the weight of that exclusion.
Museums, as public spaces, often sit at the crossroads of history and identity, as the way objects are displayed can reveal which identities have been commodified, exploited, and presented as mere ornament. Too often, artifacts have been placed behind glass without context, stripped of meaning, and displayed without confronting the difficult truths of colonial history.
At a public space like the Horniman Museum and Gardens in London, home to collections acquired from Africa and around the world during the colonial era, the question becomes: how can such a space be used to confront colonialism? And not through erasure or closure, but through transformation; by reshaping its narrative so that those once exploited are no longer silenced or objectified, but instead honored, celebrated, and given back their stories.
At the heart of All Eyes on Her! lies a deeper purpose to not only confront the colonial histories embedded in the Horniman Museum’s collections, but also to authentically tell the story of the SWANA region in a way that feels real and personal rather than performed.
“I was approached by Heba Abdel Gawad, the Senior Curator of Anthropology at the Horniman Museum, who had just finished curating the eponymous All Eyes On Her! exhibition,” Dowidar explained. “The exhibit highlights the everyday activism of contemporary Egyptian women, displaying stories, items, films, and more across three themes: resist, revolt, and reclaim.”
She was immediately drawn in, but wanted to expand it beyond Egyptian women to include the wider region. “I fell in love with the items in the exhibition display, and wanted to see how I could bring these three themes to life while expanding the focus from just Egyptian women to women from across the SWANA region.”
For Dowidar, the project built naturally on her wider work and felt like a progression that amplified what she was already doing in her own organization. “It resonated closely with the work I do as part of Hekayyatna, the organisation I co-founded with Al Shaibani, bringing communities together through storytelling, activities, discussions, and more.”
Having lived in the UK, she saw the programme as a personal expression of her own history and her experience as part of the diaspora. It felt like a story that had long been hidden within her, slowly unfolding over the years and through countless days of building and envisioning, peeling back layers to grapple with the complexity of authentically representing one’s own homeland.
“I’ve spent years living in the UK, home to one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of artefacts from around the world. But this collection could only be achieved by establishing one of the most extractive colonial empires in the world; the country’s elite spent centuries looting the cultural wealth of its colonies,” she explained.
“The Horniman museum’s history reflects this: Frederick Horniman, son and inheritor of one of the largest English tea companies in the late 1800s, started the museum to display his vast collection of objects from around the colonies. While the museum has taken significant steps to decolonise its collections and programming, the roots of its archives cannot be ignored.”
Reflecting the third theme of the All Eyes On Her! exhibit, which is Reclaim, Dowidar sees the programme at the Horniman as a way to reclaim these spaces. What was once viewed through a foreign lens is now seen through the eyes of the women themselves, carrying their history and cultures on their own shoulders.
The programme was never just about one exhibition; it was also about setting a precedent, creating a ripple effect beyond the Horniman’s walls, and challenging how cultural institutions across the UK engage with the SWANA community.
“As a curator, what I hope is that our work at the Horniman showcases to other UK cultural institutions the power of the SWANA community,” said Dowidar.
“We broke the Horniman’s attendance records by over 50 percent. This is why we do the work, and why we’ll continue to do it.”
Telling Stories, Making Art, Sharing Food
Over the years, the Horniman Museum has been addressing its colonial history through restitution efforts, like the recent return of Benin bronzes to Nigeria in 2022.
Yet its legacy remains marked by the founder’s colonialist views and racist portrayals of colonized territories, making it clear that confronting this history requires genuine efforts to learn about and understand the cultures that were exploited, not simply gestures of restitution or the return of objects.
When a space like the Horniman Museum is reclaimed, the act carries weight far beyond symbolism. It is also about who gets to access the space, and how those audiences reimagine it. For Hayat Aljowaily, co-founder of Kalam Aflam, the shift in demographics during the exhibition night was also telling of the exhibition’s success and impact.
“What excites me most about presenting this programme is witnessing the transformation of the audience. When we arrived, the museum was filled mainly with white British families, mothers with young children. Within a few hours, that shifted completely into a far more diverse audience, mainly young Arab and SWANA communities,” she said.
“It felt meaningful to contribute to making a space like the Horniman accessible and welcoming to a young diaspora crowd.”
Beyond the diversity of visitors and audiences, accessibility also meant opening doors for the artists themselves, offering them a platform within a major institution that had once felt out of reach.
The evening included a dynamic line-up curated by Kalam Aflam. Iraqi-Czech DJ Rára mixed Arabic, African, and Caribbean sounds, while French-Palestinian singer YAZ performed with Ekin Oykener, fusing Arabic tradition with contemporary jazz.
“The most important part of our work at Kalam Aflam is championing young and emerging artists and filmmakers from the Arab world and North Africa, and giving them access to spaces they might not otherwise reach,” Aljowaily added.
“For many of the North African women whose short films we screened, this was a momentous career milestone. And the same goes for music artists like Rára or Yaz, being able to perform their music in that space was very, very special.”
What remained essential to the exhibition is that representation goes beyond simply performing the SWANA region; it is also about education, which is why it included businesses like Zaytoun, which sells ethically sourced olive oil and fine foods from Palestine. Founded in the UK by Heather Masoud, Cathi Pawson, and Atif Choudhury, Zaytoun grew out of their travels to Palestine and their encounters with the injustices faced by Palestinian farmers.
Over the years, the fair trade organization has built a reputation for championing Palestinian produce, ethical sourcing, and community resilience. At the All Eyes on Her! event at the Horniman Museum, Zaytoun reached an audience it had not engaged with before.
“The event introduced Zaytoun to a new, young, and diverse audience, all of them keen to buy Palestinian products and learn more about our suppliers in the West Bank,” the team reflected.
“We always welcome opportunities to exhibit in different contexts that highlight different aspects of our mission, our Palestinian roots, our quality products, and our ethical sourcing stance. Every time new people discover Zaytoun, they see us from a new perspective.”
Although the digital age has transformed how we connect with the world, it has not lessened the value of physical space. At a time when the streets are often seen as the only sites of resistance, this exhibition showed that resistance can also emerge in many other forms and places, even in the power of a single, authentic story.
“SWANA voices are essential to share right now, whether from male or female artists, in the political context of the genocide in Gaza, the war in Sudan, and the rise of anti-immigration movements in the West,” said Aljowaily.
“The more authentic and real the art and the artists are, the more inviting it becomes. I truly believe that the more personal an experience is, the more universal it becomes.”
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