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Barakat Contemporary presents Integrations, a solo exhibition by London-based artist Shezad Dawood, from Wednesday, March 15 until Sunday, April 23, 2023.

Living in our current age of unpredictability affords artists the privilege of transcending categories, or moving fluidly across the boundaries of multimedia. Shezad Dawood is at the forefront of this movement. His first exhibition at Barakat Contemporary, Leviathan: on Sunspots and Whales (2018), was a hybrid project, spanning painting, sculpture, installation and film. In close collaboration with experts from various academic fields, Dawood addressed major contemporary issues: from climate change to marine welfare, migrants and refugees, democracy, and mental health. In embracing the hybridization of our time, Dawood's work eschews reductive categories, instead demonstrating that art should not be bound to, or operate exclusively within its own field.

This approach is further expanded in Integrations. His latest solo exhibition is a study of 20th-century modernist architecture, revealing the geological, environmental, social and economic histories indexed by buildings' vernacular, while also highlighting their architects' contribution to the urban landscape, and the structures' value as cultural heritage bridging past, present and future.

The exhibition takes its title from Les Intégrations, an artistic project in support of public infrastructure launched by Abdeslam Faraoui and Patrice de Mazières in the 1960s. By collaborating with Moroccan artists and adopting traditional arts and crafts, Les Intégrations sought to bring down the barrier between art and popular culture, promote art’s involvement in daily life, and renew Morocco’s cities and society. These ideals inspired Dawood's new series of works, premiered at Barakat Contemporary.

Dawood defines architecture as “an act of, above all, tolerance.” Architecture can sometimes transcend the physical environment, encompassing humans and objects, events and phenomena, past and future. With Dawood's Integrations, Barakat Contemporary becomes more than space, moving past ordinary boundaries through a holistic integration of multiple, intersecting histories, architecture and art.