Hands Wrapped in Silk يتلف في حرير
2026
'Hands Wrapped in Silk' was featured in the duo exhibition 'Latent,Yet,Operative'(2026) with Swiss artist Olivia Abächerli and curated by Ahmed Refaat. The exhibition was realized with the support of the Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia Cairo.
‘In this iteration of Domestic Fantasies, Hagar draws inspiration from a Russian avant-garde movement known as Faktura, which emphasized revealing the medium and materials of the artwork and resisting their concealment. This movement showed little interest in representation as an artistic strategy, whether literal or metaphorical, instead foregrounding the material qualities of the medium and linking them to labor and industrial production of the time. In collaboration with workshops and artisans, Hagar developed a silkscreen printing method based on printing with photo-sensitive emulsion—the light-sensitive material used to fix negative images onto silkscreen stencils—as a substitute for ink. She also uses silk and the stencils themselves as surfaces onto which she prints her designs, abstracting scenes of domestic or artistic labor.
Hands Wrapped In Silk places the production process itself at the center of the display and as the foundation of the work’s construction. The silk—whose function was once printing—rests on a construction scaffold within the space, alongside crafted works made of shell and canvas, all bearing Hagar’s designs. Her practice unfolds through continuous collaboration and negotiation with artisans and with the materials themselves; this process becomes the work’s meaning and dictates its mode of presentation.’ curaturial text
