The Territory Dreams Back

NIKA Project Space presents The Territory Dreams Back, a group exhibition of newly commissioned and recent works by Rajni Perera, Sancintya Mohini Simpson, Soma Surovi Jannat, Karan Shrestha and Rain Wu, on view in Dubai from 17 November 2026 to 15 January 2027. Working across painting, sculpture, video and installation, the five artists move between mythology and memory, migration and ecology, political power and the systems through which places are mapped and organised. At the heart of the exhibition lies the idea that places are shaped by far more than their physical geography. Land and water carry histories and memories; stories and beliefs inform how landscapes are understood; political decisions determine who can access and control territory; and maps and infrastructure can transform the very environments they claim to describe. Together, the artists reveal how these forces shape both the places around us and the ways people live within them — proposing that the territory, in turn, dreams back.