Artist Mandy El-Sayegh and writer-curator Shumon Basar come together to discuss El-Sayegh’s practice and her mural commission at The Showroom – This is a Sign: Notes on Assembly – which employs a cut-up methodology, layering materials with poetic fragments, to explore the textures of commonality, social justice, and modes of resistance. They will consider the references and approaches that shape El-Sayegh’s work, from questions of translation and legitimacy to the ways histories are continually remapped through images and material culture.

“How do you create a language which allows movement to get outside of the structure? This insistence on the image, and the persistence of forgotten subjects or fragments, combined with an endeavour to be with and sit with is important. Repetition makes a demand against forgetting.” - Mandy El-Sayegh with Chloe Stagaman, The Brooklyn Rail, 2026.

About the speakers

Mandy El-Sayegh is an artist based in London whose practice is rooted in assemblage. Executed in a wide range of media – including paintings, sculpture, and installation, as well as performance, sound, and video – her works investigate the formation and break-down of systems of order, be they bodily, linguistic, or political.

Recent presentations of her work include Space K, Seoul (2026), Depot of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2025–26); The Gateway Exhibition, Abu Dhabi (2024–25); Art Basel Parcours, Basel (2024); Overbeck- Gesellschaft – Kunstverein Lübeck (2023); Centre Pompidou,Paris (2022); Biennale Matter of Art, Prague (2022); and British Art Show 9, UK (2021–22). Her monograph The Makeshift Body was published in 2023 by Black Dog Press. El-Sayegh’s work is in public and private collections, including LACMA, Los Angeles; Tate, London; and Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah.

Shumon Basar is a writer, thinker, and curator. He is co-author of the books The Extreme Self and The Age of Earthquakes, both with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Basar has been Commissioner at Art Dubai’s Global Art Forum since 2011; founding member of Fondazione Prada’s Thought Council; conducted special projects at Prada and Miu Miu; Curator of Public Program at Art Week Riyadh 2025; Expert Advisory Group for the Royal Commission of AlUla; Curator-at-Large at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai; and co-founder of web3 startup Zien. In 2025, Basar contributed to establishing Ibraaz, a London-located space for art, culture and ideas from the global majority, initiated by Lina Lazaar and the Kamel Lazaar Foundation. He’s also known for his neologisms – such as ‘Endcore’ and ‘Lorecore’ – which act as navigational tools in the extreme present.