Museo Madre, Naples

June 5th-21st

The title of the videoart exhibition evokes a verse by Bassam Hajar which, through the metaphor of the tree, conjures up both rootedness and exile, poetically highlighting the intense geopolitical specificity that this region embodies at this moment in history. For this second instalment, the project involves six of the most active independent organisations dedicated to contemporary visual cultures in the Campania region: ATTIVA Cultural Projects, EX – VOTO [radical public culture], Flip Project, Marea Art Project, Opificio Puca and Quartiere Latino.

As part of this programme, Ex-voto [Radical Public Culture] presents the video work *Travelling Images, an Image Amidst the Heart* (الصور المتنقلة صورة بوسط القلب) by Joud Toamah.

Talk on June 18Th 2026 at 6PM
with: Nicola Ciancio and Simona Da Pozzo, EX – VOTO [radical public culture], Elisa Caldana, Federico del Vecchio Flip Project, Marta Ferrara and Alberta Romano 

image: videoprojection of the video Travelling Images, An Image Amidst the Heart at Madre Museum

An Image Amidst the Heart* (الصور المتنقلة صورة بوسط القلب) video work meditates on family photographs and their digital transmission across multiple displacements from Deir ez-Zor, Syria. Tracing gestures such as scanning, uploading, searching, cutting, compressing, and forwarding, the work reflects on how fragmented personal and collective memories are reassembled into new narrative constellations marked by ruptures and disappearances. The intimacy of the images remains fugitive from state surveillance, erasure, and border violence, foregrounding fragile yet enduring acts of relationality and mourning.

image: We invited the actress Giulia Pica, Pesci Company, to read the text that Joud wrote for the talk.

Joud Toamah is a multidisciplinary designer and research-based artist working with moving image, sound and publishing, exploring memory and knowledge transmission within contexts of erasure. Her current work centers the Euphrates River as a witness to deep relationality against militarism and extractivism. She coordinates the Advanced Master’s in Art and Design Research (AdMA, Antwerp) and co-teaches “Islamic Ways of Knowing and Aesthetic Practices.” Her work has been exhibited at venues including FOMU, Beursschouwburg, Monty and Photoforum Pasquart.