Bonnefanten x Cultura Nova 2025 = Mounira Al Solh

Previously featured at venues like the Venice Biennale (2024), her work is currently on display at the Bonnefanten in A land as big as her skin, an exhibition acclaimed by press and public alike. This Lebanese-Dutch artist grew up during the war that broke out in Lebanon in 1975. This painful history is always reflected in her art. Yet her works are not bleak. They are colourful and filled with humour, revolving around resilience, hope and perseverance.

Daily life as resistance

In the Pop-up museum, you step into a magical world of embroidered canvases and soft cushions. Settle down on a sofa under the installation Night Holes (2024). While the tent keeps out all the angry and scary things, it lets through dreams and hopes. This links up with the film that is shown. The Sea is a Stereo: Paris without a Sea (2007-2008) is about a group of men living in Beirut. Despite the constant threat of war and violence, they keep up their routines and spend every day relaxing by the sea. This is both a way of surviving and an act of resistance. Al Solh’s interviewing techniques add her own distinctive touch of humour to the film.

Take a look, get down to work yourself and chill out at the foot of a mega Rossi tower

Once again, there are of course extra activities throughout the day, which you can do, see and experience free of charge. Get to know Mounira Al Solh’s realm of ideas in the special Ammodo Doc about and with the artist, Dancing on the Ruins (2025). Take inspiration from Al Solh’s work and do your own embroidery on textile, or get one of the famous transfer tattoos designed by our youth department YOUNG OFFICE.
You can’t miss the pavilion, as it’s right next to an 8-metre-high inflatable model of the iconic Bonnefanten tower designed by Aldo Rossi!

Workshop: embroider your memory

In the Pop-up pavilion, visitors can work uninterrupted on creating art. Inspired by Al Solh, they can express their fondest memories of places, people and moments, in word and image. Their nicest holiday memory, dearest grandad or childhood home. They’re memories that make us smile, but which we often miss, as well. This melancholy feeling is an important part of Al Solh’s work.

Al Solh often works with textile in order to express her feelings and tell stories. You can try that yourself too! Embroider or draw your fondest memory on textile. You can draw a picture, but you can also use words creatively and, like Al Solh, make text into a great work of art. Where is the borderline between image and language, and between memories and the present? Get to work yourself in the Pop-up museum! You can either take your artwork home with you or hang it in the museum.

At the weekend, there are supervised embroidery workshops for all ages. Anyone can join in – free of charge and without registering. But please note that places are limited.

Mounira Al Solh: celebrated artist

Al Solh is one of the most prominent artists in the Netherlands. She creates various types of art work: paintings and sculptures, as well as embroidered textiles and videos. Her work also attracts a great deal of attention internationally. The installations Al Solh made for the Lebanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2024) and for the Artes Mundi prize in Cardiff (2023) are now on display in Maastricht. The artist also created many new works especially for the exhibition at Bonnefanten, Mounira Al Solh: A land as big as her skin.

Free admission to Bonnefanten with a unique wristband

For the first time at Cultura Nova, unique Bonnefanten wristbands will be handed out. On presentation of the wristband at the Bonnefanten museum ticket office, adult Cultura Nova visitors will have free admission to the museum in Maastricht. Admission to the Bonnefanten is always free for visitors aged 18 and under.
The QR code on the wristband provides information about this special offer, which runs until 30 September 2025.

Location: Cultura Nova Festival Square, Burgemeester van Grunsvenplein, Heerlen