In September 2026, Peer presents Cemetery of Martyrs, a major new co-commission by Beirut and London-based artist Dala Nasser, produced in collaboration with Nottingham Contemporary and KM21, The Hague, Netherlands. Nasser’s new body of work comprises a canopy of dyed and marked fabrics, layered and draped over a site-specific wooden structure and an accompanying text work.
Nasser’s work explores history, displacement and community through a relationship with abstraction and alternative forms of image-making. She integrates sound, performance and film in her work, but remains quintessentially a painter, working with the medium’s most elementary materials: fabric, pigments, stretcher bars and mark making.
Cemetery of Martyrs departs from Nasser’s past works that explore the cultural and political histories of Southern Lebanon and wider West Asia; a region imprinted with the remnants of ancient societies, landscapes and geology. Whereas Nasser’s previous work has drawn on historic subjects and sites, ranging from the tragic love story of mortal Adonis and goddess Aphrodite, the 600-400 BCE tomb of King Hiram, or most recently, three tombs of Noah in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, her new commission transforms Peer’s exhibition space into a symbolic graveyard.
This new body of work is the outcome of over two years of research and field trips, guided by conversations with historians, her communities and collaborators. Using the process of frottage (the technique of taking a rubbing from an uneven surface), Nasser worked in many geographic contexts to collect charcoal grave rubbings from the gravestones and sites of seminal artists and intellectuals from Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, the United Kingdom and the United States, who all, at some stage of their lives, spent time in Beirut, Lebanon. Included in the work are Etel Adnan, Inji Aflatoun (also Efflatoun), Mahdi Amel, Ghassan Kanafani, Khalil Sakakini, Raif Khoury, Laila Shawa and Anbara Salam Khalidi, amongst many others.
The resulting collection of graves represents the lives of cultural figures from the mid nineteenth century (specifically The Nahda, a cultural and intellectual Arab Renaissance movement) to the present day, who all used their art as a tool to fight for independence and freedom in times of political dominance and occupation. Each life represented in the installation has, through their own artistic and intellectual work, shaped the notion of true sovereignty in Western Asia.
Within the installation, Nasser layers cyan blue and charcoal-marked sheets of cloth amongst black and green mourning fabrics that she has dyed and marked with shells, seeds, ash, and crushed malachite. The charcoal rubbings transcribe the surfaces of known graves, while the cyanotype treated fabrics act as a visual representation of those whose graves are unreachable or unknown by featuring the person’s name transcribed in Arabic using various scales and legibility. A booklet accompanies the exhibition, offering an individual obituary for each of the artists, writers, poets, filmmakers, historians, journalists, and others included in the cemetery. Written by Nasser in collaboration with translator and researcher Rayyan Abdelkhalek, the booklet acts as a way of commemorating each life and legacy beyond the physical cemetery.
Cemetery of Martyrs initiates a reflection on the challenge of interpreting the extreme and unceasing violence of the present moment, and invites audiences to reckon with their own role in forging new pathways of thought and action. Nasser’s cemetery creates a collective space to gather and reflect on the legacies of people who were steadfast in their commitment to freedom and cultural sovereignty; a graveyard to mourn, learn, and reaffirm the power of culture, art and humanity to connect us to histories of resistance and renewal.
Nasser’s exhibition is accompanied by a series of events as part of Peer’s Talks, Events and Workshops programme. Cemetery of Martyrs is part of Peer’s 2026 Programme, which examines themes including the construction of place, sovereignty and community and includes solo exhibitions by artists, Leah Clements, Okiki Akinfe and a forthcoming 2027 commission by Ceidra Moon Murphy.
BIOGRAPHY
Dala Nasser (b. 1990, Tyre) lives and works in London and Beirut. Selected exhibitions include: Xíloma. MCCCLXXXVI, Kunsthalle Basel; Aichi Triennale 2025: A Time Between Ashes and Roses, Nagoya, Japan; Flesh Flowers, Aishti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon (all 2025); Adonis River, Renaissance Society, Chicago, USA; Red in Tooth, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany; Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing, Whitney Museum of Art, New York; Diriyah Biennale 2024: After Rain, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (all 2024); Time spent without its flow, V.O Curations, London and 58th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (all 2022).
SUPPORTERS
Cemetery of Martyrs has been produced with support from the Henry Moore Foundation.
Cemetery of Martyrs at Peer is supported by Headline Supporters: Cockayne Grants for the Arts, Fahad Mayet and Lorenzo Leviste, and the Dala Nasser Supporters Circle: Yasmine Bassili and May Calil. With thanks to Commonwealth and Council.
Peer’s 2026 Programme is supported by the Paul and Louise Cooke Endowment.
Peer is an Arts Council England, National Portfolio Organisation and is supported by Hackney Council through a Voluntary Sector lease.
Peer Ambassadors 2026 is supported by Hackney Council Community Fund and NCEL Collaborative/Compass Wellbeing CIC. With thanks to Great Art.
Cemetery of Martyrs is produced and commissioned by Nottingham Contemporary in collaboration with KM21 The Hague, Netherlands and Peer, London.
