Tawfik Naas
Manifestations For An Eternal Spring
09 May – 16 August 2026
Public Opening: 09 May 2026, 14:00–18:00
Flatland Projects is proud to present Manifestations for an Eternal Spring, a new commission and the first institutional solo exhibition by researcher Tawfik Naas.
Developed through an ongoing body of research, the exhibition unfolds as what Naas describes as a choreography of research. Rather than a fixed installation, works are positioned across the gallery as sites of encounter, held within a wider conceptual framework the researcher terms “Returning.” For Naas, returning is not a simple act of looking back. It operates across three simultaneous positions: a return from the distance created by time; a return to the moment of re-encounter; and a position in between, where past and present are held together. The works in the exhibition occupy this middle condition, resisting resolution and instead sustaining a state of entanglement.
Across the space, a series of sculptural bodies referred to as “Orchards” appear at different stages of formation. These works deliberately resist completion. Some emerge as if mid-evolution; others are flattened through light or colour, diffused or partially obscured. This suspended quality positions the works not as fixed objects, but as processes in motion. The Orchards function as material instances of becoming. They appear to move both towards and away from form, holding traces of earlier states while continuing to shift in the present. In this way, they embody a temporal paradox: objects that are of now, yet inhabited by what has come before.
A key reference for the exhibition is the astronomical phenomenon of contact binaries, two stars orbiting in such proximity that they begin to share matter. This condition of closeness and exchange informs the relationships between works. Sculptural forms appear in pairs or groupings, suggesting bodies that exist through proximity, where material, light and space pass between them. Within Naas’ practice, research does not sit as explanation but as a generative condition. The works do not resolve research; they hold it open. The Orchards operate as sites where enquiry continues to unfold.
This new commission marks a shift within Naas’ wider research. Previous chapters have approached history through extraction and deviation, exploring how ecological systems hold and process trauma. Here, the focus turns toward the experience of return itself; what it means to encounter history again through the body, whether human or botanical. History is not presented for interpretation at a distance. Instead, it is reprocessed within the environments that produced it. It does not leave its landscape; rather, it moves through it.
This new commission by Flatland Projects has been generously supported by essential funds from the Henry Moore Foundation, Arts Council England, Chalk Cliff Trust and Rother District Council, with additional support from the De La Warr Pavilion.