Projects — Tawfik Naas

Research Arcs

The following research arcs form a sustained thread within a longer-running research enquiry, unfolding since 2017.

Manifestations For An Eternal Spring

Flatland Projects
Unit 22, Beeching Road,
Bexhill on Sea, TN39 3LJ

Solo

09 May - 16 August
2026

“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.”

Photography by Phoebe Wingrove + Alina

(A Study) In Muddled Light

Kip Gallery
68 Peckham Road
London SE5 8QE

Solo

28 February- 8 March
2026

“(A Study) In Muddled Light” reimagines the gallery as a site for active study, where research is understood from within its own interior. Text and ideas intimately unfold across the heart of the home that plays host to Kip. Tawfik’s subtle sculptural and sensory interventions facilitate the ability to explore his ongoing research into how historic trauma is carried, remembered, and transformed. His research borrows from ecological and cosmological systems to imagine alternative ways of witnessing the past.

Throughout the exhibition, Tawfik welcomes collaborators to join him. During these ‘study sessions’ research partners are invited to discuss, work, share, or develop from their own practices alongside him, with the potential for this work to leak into and reshape the foundational research set by Tawfik. In turn, visitors can leave their mark by navigating the available information and digesting it in an intuitive way.

Photography by Rita Silva

Across the run of (A Study) In Muddled Light - three texts were offered into the space as points of access inside the research.

In Muddled Light

Mineral Question
Our Question Is A Cosmic Material

Other points of access came from invited participants.

Their contributions took form in taste and scent.

Tatse

Made by Gabrielle Jameson

Magnolia Vinegar x Shittake + Ginger // Drink

Scent

Made by Ashiana Fraser

AR1091176 Before The Return- EDP 20%

T: Funghi note, Wormwood, Wet earth
M: Cedarwood, Black Magnolia
B: Myrrh, Copaiba, Patchouli Roots, Vetiver Roots

AR1091175 After The Return - EDP 20%

T: Baies Rose Petals, Lemon, Cardamom
M: Orange Flower, Frankincense, Ylang, Jasmine
B: Vetiver, Dry Cedar, Labdanum Resin, Oud

Contributions
->

Through Eating Atoms - Gabrielle Jameson developed gestural culinary offerings that aim to punctuate the research over time. Throughout the show - Jameson created a Magnolia vinegar // Shitakke + Ginger syrup beverage.These elements extend in subtleties - tapping at the surface of what is to manifest.

Ashiana Fraser has digested Tawfik’s research and produced two scents that signify the space before and after the “return”. They position the research into two distinct spaces - underground and above ground where Spring is about to come. This scented offerings act as a sensorial guide through the research - another way to digest an intuitive or embodied beginning.

** Saturday 7 March - Munesu Mukombe:Environment Making - Tawfik and Munesu attune to the hidden sounds of the space.

Munesu and Tawfik reencounter their joint framework "Environment Making” which looks to investigate how a space is made and new art methodologies are created. Through an unfolding of sonic revelations, together, they will digest the research and their surroundings. Similar to a mix CD you made for your high school crush or a song reblogged on your totally aesthetic and mildly popular Tumblr page, Munesu and Tawfik attune to the hidden sounds of the space - offering these to the audience like a gift.

Follow the playlist below to enoucter the outputs again.

Grove (feat. Embaci) — Elysia Crampton
A Lie — Kelela (prod. Bok Bok)
Pink + White — Frank Ocean
A Message — Kelela
Bygones — A Made Up Sound
Say Hey — Kylie Minogue
Adore — I:Cube

Have You Decided — Ruthven
Breaths — Sweet Honey in the Rock
Bliss (Acapella) — Mariah Carey
Romantic — Mannequin Pussy
My All — Mariah Carey

Invited Studiers ->

Ashiana Fraser ♡ ... is a fragrance developer and fragrance specialist based in London. With a vivid imagination, Ashiana’s work leads with emotion, allowing her to connect scent and history with an original olfactive vision.

Eating atoms ♡ ... is an observation by artist and baker Gabrielle Jameson, that uses food as a vehicle for learning. Eating atoms provides a space of insight by exploring how food and life coexist in a collateral stream of information that infuse each other's outcomes.

Hugo Hagger ♡ ... is an artist and writer based in London. He explores queer subjectivity through modes of narrative flux.

Munesu Mukombe ♡ ... wishes you were here!

Samra Mayanja ♡ ... is a ‘vice versa’ type of artist-writer. With love (always).

Study sessions ->

Sunday 1 March - Hugo Hagger: Tawfik and Hugo live edit text The Question As Cosmic Material.
Saturday 7 March - Munesu Mukombe: Environment Making - Tawfik and Munesu attune to the hidden sounds of the space.
Sunday 8 March - traces left by Samra Mayanja in advance of opening at 14:00. Kip will exceptionally close at 17:30 for iftar hosted by Eating atoms.

Chaos Is A Flower

San Mei Gallery
39a Loughborough Rd
London SW9 7TB

Solo

12 April - 1 June
2024

“Chaos is a Flower turns away from linear understandings of historical events and collective trauma that position history within the limited framework of anthropocentric perception, inspired by the morphology of germinating plants as a symbol of resilience and hope. Rather than remaining within the historical confines of what he calls the event of ‘geohydrotrauma’, Naas instead offers more cosmological conceptions of time in order to expand the possibilities for rewriting histories through the regenerative and restorative lens of deep time and deep ecology. If trauma can be understood as a repetitive bind in which its victims become forever “stuck” within the traumatic event, the exhibition offers a speculative environment alive to moments of transformation and healing.”

Untitled (Sandbag), 2024 Printed vinyl, rope and sand

Sepal, 2024 Denim, Polyester and Metal

Untitled (Seed), 2024 Plastic and spray primer

Archetypal Flower, 2024 Plastic and epoxy putty

Chaos Is A Flower, 2024 (Exhibition View)

Chaos Is A Flower, A Friction In Every Direction 2023 (Text)

Environment Making: Tawfik Naas & Munesu Mukombe

2024 Conversation

What If I don't want to ‘world build’? What if there are things that I love and want to manipulate within my own world? How do I straddle the boundaries between a newly imagined environment and the old that I inherited? Like the walls of my teenage bedroom I build my practice expressing my desires ; cutting out pages from a magazine and taping them on a wall. No inhibitions. I am environment making’ -

Munesu Mukombe

Chaos Is A Flower, A Friction In Every Direction

2023 Text
(Read Here)

Instead, It Bore A Tulip

Ground Floor, Alfies Antique Market,
13 - 25 Church St, London NW8 8DT

Solo

19 July- 2 August
2025

“Instead, It Bore a Tulip marks an evolution in Tawfik Naas’s long-term research-led practice, now in its eighth year. Investigating the failure of the Libyan government’s ‘Great Manmade River’ project; proposed under then-leader Muammar Gaddafi as the world’s largest irrigation system, Naas’ research practice seeks to portray the trauma and disruption inflicted on communities by the project’s collapse, which stemmed from a range of complex problems and ultimately forced his own family to migrate. Known for his sustained engagement with historical trauma, ecological time, and inherited memory, Naas presents a new body of 2D work that signals a shift from research as a tool for understanding to research as a foundation for belief.”

A/Scented, 2025. Eyeshadow on paper. 40 x 60 x 0.5 cm

Hands Holding Seeds, 2025. Pencil on paper. 60 x 40 x 0.5 cm

Animal(s), 2025. Pencil on paper 21 x 14.8 cm (unframed)

The Leaves And Sun Glow Alike, 2025. Pastel on paper. 21 x 29.7 cm (unframed)

“Hand”, “Seed”, “Water”, “Tulip In Hand,” 2025. Pencil on paper on perspex. 80 x 70 x 0.5 cm

Hands holding water, 2025. Eyeshadow on paper. 29.7 x 21 cm (unframed)

1. Unfolded 1, 2025. Pastel on Paper. 42 x 29.7 cm (unframed) 2. Unfolded 2, 2025. Pastel on Paper. 42 x 29.7 cm (unframed) 3. Unfolded 3, 2025. Pastel on Paper. 42 x 29.7 cm (unframed)

“Tawfik is slowly building and consolidating a living history, which takes its cues from the natural world, where evolution never existed as linear and difference was never mutually exclusive. The body of work is alive because it deals with things which are alive.”

- Aram Masharqa,

for Whitehot Magazine

Instead, It Bore A Tulip - 2025, Pamphlet

Instead, It Bore A Tulip - 2025, Pamphlet - The Shield Has Ywo Sides

Instead, It Bore A Tulip - 2025, Pamphlet - Eclipsed and Everfolding

Instead, It Bore A Tulip - 2025, Bookmark + Seed Clip

Micheal Marder:

"Plants come out and are eventuated differently, because in germinating and growing they do not cut themselves loose from their source..."

This paperclip seed connects pages, fragments, thoughts without cutting them from their origins. Like a seed reaching toward light, it binds ideas while allowing new forms to emerge.

(Donwload Here)

Collaborative Projects

Collaborative projects sit outside the arcs, but occasionally bleed into and reshape them.

01a

(E)theric Mnemonics: Unfolding Reflections: Through Dreamt Springs of tRaNsFeRRari [Cut flowers still spring] ♫All that I know is, Mirrors inside me, They recognize you ♫ [Read here]

Allotment
Arbutus Street, E8 4DT +
Autoitalia
44 Bonner Rd, Bethnal Green, London E2 9JS

Reaserch Presentation + Noetic Lecture W/ Kumbirai Makumbe

19 Oct + 24 Oct
2025

(e) – 9m36s

– An accompanying sonic piece featuring a slow unfolding of references and moments leaking into the spaces. Sampled elements include ASMR pear eating, SZA, FKA Twigs, voice memos from Paris, video audio from a Kelela rave 2024, Pastor Chris, Amerie’s Fall in Love, and more.

2025 Audio

(e)mails - Kumbirai Makumbe + Tawfik Naas

2025 Publication

02a

Tender Xchange

SET Lewisham, Biblioteka, Gasworks, Elizabeth Fry House, San Mei Gallery

Reaserch Lab(Ongoing) - Feel free to contact