Mixed media

Works that combine multiple techniques — paint, collage, drawing, found objects, fabric, and ephemera — into a single composition. Mixed media gained currency in Arab contemporary art from the 1980s onward, as artists sought materials and methods that could carry the layered complexity of regional identity, memory, and migration. Jordanian sculptor Mona Saudi, Iraqi master Dia Azzawi, and Egyptian-German conceptualist Susan Hefuna have all worked extensively in mixed media. The form is particularly favored by contemporary artists exploring displacement and reassembly — using literal layering of materials to enact the layered nature of belonging in the modern Arab world.