The Foundation and Museo Nivola is pleased to present Behind the Seen, a solo exhibition by artist Mona Hatoum, the result of a residency in Orani during which Hatoum explored Sardinia, deepening her encounter with the island’s local culture and artisanal practices.

Curated by Giuliana Altea, Antonella Camarda and Luca Cheri, the exhibition includes both existing works and several new productions, some created in collaboration with local artisans. Behind the Seen reflects on the relationship between body, matter and land, between what is visible and what remains hidden.

Through a language that combines formal minimalism with political tension, Hatoum questions how space is regulated, surveilled and colonised. Her work does not offer solutions, but rather builds environments of experience and suspension, in which viewers are continuously called upon to reposition themselves, to negotiate their perspective and to “see” what remains behind the scenes. In this sense, her works act as critical zones of perception, where the artistic gesture becomes a tool of excavation, deconstruction and unveiling.

The exhibition’s title plays on the double meaning of “seen” and “scene,” suggesting a gaze beyond appearances, toward the hidden spaces of human experience: memory, trauma and the desire for resistance.

Through works that merge formal research with profound political reflection, Behind the Seen challenges the power structures that shape how we see and inhabit the world, revealing what is often concealed behind appearances.

Hatoum’s work revolves around a set of fundamental tensions: inside and outside, visible and invisible, attraction and repulsion, control and vulnerability. From the very beginning, her practice has functioned as a critical device capable of disrupting the supposed neutrality of spaces, objects and forms, showing how every surface can conceal a threshold of ambiguity or a zone of conflict.