Nel Gallery | The Truth About Love

Love as Liberation: Ferial Mohmed's Artistic Response to Bell Hooks

This exhibition draws inspiration from social commentator Bell Hooks' seminal work, where she proposes love as the foundation for freedom and decolonization. Hooks argues against the marginalization of love within Black artistic expression, emphasizing its crucial role in challenging systems of domination.

Mohmed's artwork responds to this call, exploring diverse aspects of love—self-love, spiritual love, family love, and romantic love—to open a dialogue on its transformative power.

Drawing upon Hooks' assertion that “without love, our efforts to liberate ourselves and our world community from oppression and exploitation are doomed,”, this exhibition challenges hierarchical structures rooted imperialism, sexism, racism, classism, and capitalism.

Mohmed argues that the transactional nature of love prevalent in society, mirroring capitalist exchange, needs to be transcended. She encourages us to look beyond this limited view and embrace a deeper understanding of love as “loving the essence of people.”

The exhibition delves into the “collective failure to acknowledge the needs of the spirit” identified by Hooks, highlighting the widespread human search for love reflected in the abundance of self-help books. Mohmed echoes Hooks' exploration of “what love is” in her book “All About Love”, aiming to inspire conversation about love's potent role in achieving decoloniality.