Our Projects
Sister garden exchange
Samara camp & PennState
A long term collaborative project between families and youth in Samara camp and students and participants from PennState.
Phosphorus Garden
Grand Musée de l'Afrique
Phosphorus (P in the periodic table) is known as the element of growth. It exists in all forms of life; in plants, animals and humans. It helps the bodies of the living things to grow. Building up on my previous artistic research and my interest in phosphate and its fate.
Gdeim Izik calendar
Frontline Defenders
Gdeim Izik Calendar is a series of illustrations highlighting the events of the Gdeim Izik Protest organized by the Saharawi civil society in Western Sahara in 2010.
phosfate sandoponic garden
helsinki biennial 2023 Finland
PHOSfate is a collaboration between Mohamed Sleiman Labat, an artist and writer born in the Sahrawi refugee camps, southwest Algeria, and Pekka Niskanen, a media artist, filmmaker and researcher based in Helsinki.
ENDLESS
Te Tuhi Gallery, Aotearoa New Zealand
Te Tuhi’s Project Wall features the pairing of projects by Matthew Galloway and Mohamed Sleiman Labat. In different ways, Endless and Desert Strawberries both shed light on Aotearoa’s reliance on phosphate rock from occupied Western Sahara.
phosfate artistic research
Kone foundation residency
Two artists from two different backgrounds and contexts meet up for a casual conversation one day and end up with an idea for an artistic research project connecting two different aspects of one story affecting their lives: phosphate.
Seed Bank is an art project by Mohamed Sleiman Labat and the farming families to collect, preserve and swap local seeds as part of their garden practices in the Sahrawi refugee camps.
migratory birds
MUA. Museo de la Universidad de Alicante, Spain
Migratory Birds is an art collaboration between Mohamed Sleiman Labat and Rahma Mohamed Bachir Sidahmed to explore the impact and significance of migratory bird cycles in different environments.
For Fair Saturday Event, Mohamed Sleiman Labat teamed up with kids from Bubisher Library and MPDL to recreated the Great Wave of Hokusai using different plastic and discarded materials collected from around Samara camp.
HANDS
Myymälä2 Gallery, Helsinki
Hands is a photography journey to tell the story of my father through the movement of his hands
The Nomadic Calendar
The Art of Naming the Years
An on-going research project. A collaboration between Sahrawi Artist Mohamed Sleiman Labat and his father to collect, document and study the Nomadic Calendar as narrated by the elderly in the Sahrawi community…
SAHRAWI CURRENCY
A collaborative presentation by Mel Chin, with the people of the Western Sahara, Ahmed Boukhari, Dr. Richard Corkish, Markus A. R. Kayser, Mohamed Sleiman Labat, Jonathan Teo, with thanks to Robin Kahn, Kirby Gookin, and Representative Mohamed Yeslem Beissat
Community art tent
Luleå Biennial 2024
A nomadic art tent made in collaboration with the Sahrawi women in Samara camp
EMPTY VESSELS &
DESERT NARRATIVES
Hastings City Gallery
Exploring the shifting political grounds of global food production, Empty Vessels and Desert Narratives is a dialogue between Aotearoa New Zealand artist Matthew Galloway and Sahrawi Western Saharan artist Mohamed Sleiman Labat.
PHOSfate Community Garden
With the exhibited Sandoponic garden, Sleiman Labat and Niskanen experiment with growing diverse vegetables parallel to family gardens in the Hamada Desert.
Out of Place
Imago Mundi Collection
This collection represents a new stage in the Imago Mundi journey: the protagonists of the collection are the artists for whom “journey” means leaving the place where they were born, be it due to war, persecution or other factors, in search of asylum and are welcome elsewhere.
The 264 artists that make up Out of Place live or have lived in 18 different refugee camps across the globe; they are from Africa (Algeria, Burundi, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda), Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Jordan, Myanmar, Palestine, Syria, Vietnam), South America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela), and Europe (Ukraine).
Think Tent
Borland Project Space, PennState
Think Tent collaborative project derived from the Sister Garden Exchange which Prof Ann Holt and Mohamed Sleiman Labat have been exploring and developing over the years, Think Tent is a performative exhibition of living arts and pedagogies.
IFCA 2025
Algiers
Motif Art Studio has invited four Saharawi artists and photographers to take part in IFCA 2025, the International Festival of Contemporary Art in Algiers. The invited artists use the medium of photography and film to explore themes around displacement, exile and the creative interventions in the Saharawi refugee camps.