The first solo exhibition in Canada by Ali Cherri, To Fall, Patiently, is on view at Oakville Galleries in Ontario through October 3rd, 2026. Spanning Gairloch Gardens and Centennial Square, the exhibition brings sculpture, film, and watercolour into a searching exploration of history, memory, political violence, and survival. Across these works, Cherri examines how objects, landscapes, and cultural histories retain the scars of conflict and carry them forward.
Born in Beirut in 1976 and now based in Paris, Cherri has developed a multidisciplinary practice spanning film, performance, sculpture, painting, drawing, and installation. Shaped by Lebanon’s postwar art scene, his work traces how histories of violence reverberate across generations, cultures, and material objects. Ancient artefacts frequently collide with contemporary realities, linking archaeology, political history, and personal memory. In 2022, he received the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale.
Ali Cherri on art and conflict, borders and survival
At Gairloch Gallery, To Fall, Patiently brings together hybrid sculptures assembled from diverse materials and ancient artefacts Cherri discovered at auctions and marketplaces. Severed from their original contexts, these objects become fragments of history open to new interpretations. Watercolours of prickly-pear cacti, meanwhile, turn thorns and radiant flowers into symbols of trauma, endurance, and survival in conflict-affected regions.
The central film Of Men and Gods and Mud examines the relationship between people, labour, and the environment in northern Sudan, tracing how landscapes shape livelihoods while political and ecological forces transform them. The work earned Cherri the Silver Lion at the 2022 Venice Biennale.
In the sculpture garden, The Tree of Life draws on the sacred tree motif of ancient Assyrian reliefs. Cast in bronze, it links archaeological imagery with contemporary questions of cultural memory and preservation. Nearby, the neon work Les (Sur)Vivants evokes life’s fragility after catastrophe, its title—“the survivors” or “those who remain alive”—pointing to existence’s precarious persistence.
At Centennial Gallery, The Watchman is a hypnotic film set in Cyprus, following a soldier stationed beside the no-man’s-land dividing Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot territories. Through this encounter with a fractured landscape, Cherri considers borders as forces that shape sovereignty, identity, and geopolitical reality.
Across the exhibition, violence leaves its mark on objects, landscapes, and collective memory. To Fall, Patiently moves between fragility and resilience, ancient myth and contemporary politics, asking what survives catastrophe—and what meanings might rise from its ruins.
Ali Cherri: To Fall, Patiently is on view at Oakville Galleries, Gairloch Gardens & Centennial Square, Oakville, Canada, from June 13th to October 3rd, 2026. The exhibition is supported by TD Bank Group.
Ali Cherri: To Fall Patiently, Oakville Galleries at Centennial Square, 2026
Photography by JIMMY LIMIT
