A Magic Realist Afrabia

A Magical Realist Afrabia presents the magical realist world of emerging British Sudanese artist Ranya Elnayal. In her first solo exhibition, Elnayal – armed with magical realism and an architect’s eye – reimagines London’s Church Street in London into a magical realist Afrabia.  

A Magic Realist Afrabia is a series of digital prints exploring themes of multicultural identities, hybridity, and the third space. Focusing on the struggle of describing the Sudanese identity to Westerners, Elnayal puts forward magic realism as a direct approach. Drawing on Sudanese author Tayeb Salih’s ‘Season of Migration to the North’, Elnayal depicts the novel’s main protagonist - Mustafa Saeed – in his travels from Sudan to the West and his struggle with his contradicting, complex, and evolving ethnic and cultural identity.

This exhibition is part of the reACT programme: an innovative program established by P21 Gallery & Amal (a Saïd Foundation programme) to promote and support emerging and student artists whose work is dedicated to or inspired by the Middle East & Arab world by providing a space within the P21 Gallery for an artistic intervention.