Eyes Wide Shut explored female trauma, healing, memory, and resilience through the works of women artists from across the Middle East and beyond. Presented at Firetti Contemporary in Alserkal Avenue, the exhibition brought together deeply personal and politically charged works examining war, displacement, psychological tension, femininity, and emotional recovery through painting, collage, film, installation, and mixed media.
Co-curated by Celine Azem, Mara Firetti, and Oceane Sailly, the exhibition marked Firetti Contemporary’s first all-female group show and featured artists including Annie Kurkdjian, Sawsan Al Bahar, and Negin Fallah. The exhibition challenged societal silences surrounding women’s emotional realities while creating space for vulnerability, confrontation, and introspection.
Through fragmented figures, symbolic imagery, and layered material processes, the works navigated themes of bodily autonomy, inherited trauma, migration, identity, and inner transformation. The exhibition positioned contemporary art as a means of processing collective and personal experiences, foregrounding women artists whose practices resist erasure while reclaiming agency through visual storytelling.
