Foundland Collective
Credit: Julie Jamora
Foundland Collective is an artistic collaboration founded in 2009 by South African artist Lauren Alexander and Syrian artist Ghalia Elsrakbi. Based between Amsterdam and Cairo, the duo works across installation, video, design, writing, archives, and educational formats to explore overlooked political and historical narratives.
Through artistic research and storytelling, their practice investigates questions of memory, displacement, migration, and representation, critically reflecting on the production of politically engaged art from positions between Europe and the Middle East.
Foundland's work has been presented internationally at institutions and festivals including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Ars Electronica, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, KADIST Foundation, BAK Utrecht, Framer Framed Amsterdam, IMPAKT Festival, ISCP New York, the Fikra Biennial in Sharjah, the Tashweesh Feminist Festival, and the London Art Fair. Their video works are distributed and preserved by LIMA, the Dutch media art archive.
The collective received the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship for research in the Alixa Naff Arab American Collection and was shortlisted for the Dutch Prix de Rome and the Dutch Design Awards. Alongside their artistic practice, Alexander and Elsrakbi lecture internationally and contribute essays and visual work to publications on contemporary art, politics, and cultural memory.