Curated by Omar Kholeif, the exhibition, Plaited Time / Deep Water emerges from amalgamated questions and investigations related to the sea. Not just any sea, but the oceanic expanse that extends from Sharjah—from one gulf to another—across to Zanzibar and back again. The artists, Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska, have worked together on this exhibition for several years. They delineate passages—paths through pattern and textile, memory, and sound, negotiating representation and landscape in a place where the aesthetics of western modernity are but an errant footnote in the lives of its citizens. The exhibition’s title relates to the cumulative act of making, of creativity as a lived and necessary part of the human experience, one that demands intervals, frequent dialogue—both all-encompassing discussions and intimate tête-à-tête.

The exhibition took several years to realise and was site-specific to the courtyards and buildings of Sharjah. It featured newly commissioned work by Himid, Stawarska as well as Omar Kholeif, who produced a libretto with Stawarska for Himid's "Plan B" paintings.

Plaited Time / Deep Water unfolds in the galleries and courtyards of Al Mureijah Square much like a series of letters exchanged between two people, who, have generously invited us into their conversation. To pinpoint when the show was seeded is to traverse an expanse of innumerable convening. It begun during a transAtlantic Skype call with Lubaina Himid in 2017, a lunch of mezze in London circa 2020 and in 2021, as well as during one of several studio visits when the artists were amidst the intense passion of making.