Lamya Gargash x Vivian Wang:
Tracking Nomadism (Live)
Lamya Gargash x Vivian Wang:
Tracking Nomadism (Live)
Tracking Nomadism (2026) is the first collaboration between Emirati photographer Lamya Gargash and Singaporean sound artist Vivian Wang, commissioned by M+ for the Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival. Both artists share a deep interest in the transience of modern life, built architectures, and their representation through photography and sound. A visually stunning, large-scale presentation of Gargash’s photographs—shot around the world in different formats—accompanies Wang’s live score performance. Together, they evoke the lingering presence, memories, and aspirations of people who move across time and place. Through a multilayered flow of still images and an interplay of environmental, electronic, and instrumental sounds, Gargash and Wang present a richly textured reflection on contemporary mobility and the spaces we dream, build, inhabit, and ultimately leave behind.
The event will be followed by a conversation with the artists moderated by Silke Schmickl, CHANEL Senior Curator, Head of Moving Image, M+, in English.
About the Artist
Lamya Gargash (b. 1982, United Arab Emirates) is known for her conceptual work in photography and occasionally in film, installation, sculpture, and painting. Her photography documents inhabited and abandoned architectures, probing their social, cultural, and psychological dimensions. Using analogue and digital colour, she composes striking images that chronicle the history of these sites in a personal, poetic manner, foregrounding the remnants of human presence and its layers of anxiety, memory, and restlessness. Gargash represented the United Arab Emirates at its debut pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2009. Her work has been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions internationally.
Portrait of Lamya Gargash. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Vivian Wang (b. 1971, Singapore) is a composer, sound artist, and musician. Her transdisciplinary work draws on a range of sonic practices to reconfigure intermediate spaces and construct sound architectures. A founding member of the experimental rock group The Observatory, she has performed as a noise and improv musician since 2001. Using environmental sounds, field recordings, and elemental approaches, Wang develops durational pieces for expanded media, performances, and interactive installations. Her work has been presented around the world, including at M+ with two commissions: Drawn to Light (2024) and Imitations of Shanshui (2024), for the exhibition Shanshui: Echoes and Signals.
Portrait of Vivian Wang. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Image at top: Lamya Gargash. Lonely Tree. Dubai, UAE, 2014. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and The Third Line, Dubai