Huda Lutfi: Unraveling

The Third Line is pleased to present Unraveling, Huda Lutfi’s fourth solo exhibition at the gallery. Bringing together works from three of her recent series—When Dreams Call for Silence (2019), Our Black Thread (2020–2021), and Healing Devices (2020-ongoing)—the exhibition traces the deepening introspective qualities of Lutfi’s practice over the recent years. Unraveling also features a selection of previously unshown miniature collages that precede Healing Devices, offering insight into Lutfi’s artistic experimentations that culminated in these sculptural abstractions. The exhibition includes a new video work, The Seven-legged Demon of the Night (2025), made in memory of Lutfi’s mother, whose lifelong work as a seamstress inspired the artist’s practice centered on thread and fabric.

Owing to her background as a cultural historian, Lutfi’s work has long engaged with the sociopolitical currents of her surroundings, particularly her longtime home, Cairo. In her earlier works, human figures—often fragmented, dismembered, or punctured through her signature collage technique—serve as both reactions to and reflections on the crises that unfolded during moments of political unrest in Egypt. In her series When Dreams Call for Silence (2019), the human figure remains but is now set within surreal domestic scenes or immersed in poignant silence, marking a shift in Lutfi’s practice toward stillness and introspection, as described by writer and curator Sara El-Adl.

This contemplative direction deepens in Healing Devices (2020-ongoing), where Lutfi moves toward assemblages of organic and geometric paper cutouts carefully arranged against delicate silver or gold backgrounds. The series is inspired by Ismail al-Jazari, a 12^th century Arab designer and polymath, whose manuscript, The Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (1206), contains over 100 illustrations. Initiated during the COVID-19 pandemic—a period of global uncertainty and isolation—Healing Devices embodies a sense of quiet resilience, healing, and spiritual reflection. Complementing this body of work, the exhibition also presents a selection of previously unseen miniature collages—spontaneous experimentations with form that preceded the Healing Devices series. These compositions offer a glimpse into the intuitive, exploratory process that became the foundation for the series.

In the Our Black Thread (2020-21) series, Lutfi further leans into the act of making as a healing practice. What began as a casual exercise at home—improvising with thread on used teabags and car-filters—evolved into a fully-fledged practice rooted in materiality, intuition, and ritual. Utilizing the mobility afforded by the medium’s lightness, Lutfi sewed both at home and in her studio, creating a multitude of minimalist compositions with a restrained palette of black, white, gray, and off-white. The works not only amplify the introspective meditation that fueled their making but also evoke the historical association of craftsmanship as feminine labor and its complex relationship to art.

Gallery Two presents The Seven-legged Demon of the Night (2025), a new video made in memory of Lutfi’s mother, Su’ad Hanim ‘Abdul ‘Aziz Wali, who was a seamstress. The work captures Su’ad’s hands during a period of her illness, engaged in the miming of sewing and cutting. Interwoven with texts reflecting on her mother’s relationship with sewing, the video invites contemplation on what sewing signifies to a female body, its ties to memory and healing, as well as kinship.

Collectively, the works in Unraveling offer a compelling portrait of Lutfi, whose embodied, deeply meditative practice remains ever relevant in a world increasingly grappling with political strife and violence. In the words of Lutfi: “Art is a healing practice. You forget yourself—the burden of the ego, as well as its anxieties and desires—when you immerse yourself in a work of art.”