A Solo Exhibition of Amado Alfadni
curated by Najlaa El-Ageli

“Alternative Museum of The Sudan” is a solo exhibition of Amado Alfadni’s work which gave us a gracious view of the lives experienced by the enslaved Sudanese soilders. Curated by Najlaa El-Ageli the exhibition oozes with bright bold colours beaming from the fabric designed by Amado. The same fabric that we would later on see on the models who came out showcasing some of the outfits made from the fabric Amado had designed featuring the faces of the Sudanese soldiers.

Amado joined us over a zoom call in Cairo, while we were gathered at the Sulger-Buel Gallery, reminding us the Arab Slave Trade has contributed greatly to our history and this must not be forgotten.

Amado’s work gives dignity to the Sudanese people who were enslaved and used as soldiers by the British and Egyptian people. For Amado who spent his childhood in both Egypt and Sudan this presents conflict for him but Amado is determined to ensure a negative narrative is turned into something empowering.

The exhibition is curated by Najlaa El-Ageli, an architect with over twenty years of experience in the profession. Najlaa also founded Noon Arts Projects in 2012, a small private arts foundation, with a mission to bring the best of contemporary Libyan art, from both emerging and established artists, and expose it to the world stage.

Collaborating with various cultural foundations and galleries, she has curated over 16 projects and successfully shed light on the current Libyan cultural and artistic scene. She has collaborated with the London based Shubbak festival 2015, The Nour Festival 2015 curating the solo retrospective exhibition “Birthmark Theory” for the late Libyan/Canadian artist Arwa Abouon, The Benetton Foundation 2016 Italy for the Imago Mundi Libya project and went on to curate two successful group exhibitions with Casa Arabe in Spain between 2018 and 2020. One of them, ‘Pop Art from North Africa’, with a collective of 19 artists from North Africa exploring the phenomenon of Pop Art; and, the other one titled ‘Retracing A Disappearing Landscape’, featuring another collective of 18 artists with a link to Libya, addressing collective memory and personal histories relating to modern day Libya.

From 2020 till recently Najlaa has been collaborating with Sulger-Buel Gallery in London as an independent curator, she curated “Waves”, a collective of five emerging North African artists, “Soul Taming” for renowned and established Egyptian/ Nubian artist Fathi Hassan and “Darna” Installation exhibition for French Moroccan street artist COMBO.

The exhibition will be on display until 30 June at the Sulger-Buel Gallery: 51 Surrey Row, Unit 2 La Gare, London SE1 0BZ