This winter of 2026, M.Bassy presents the solo exhibition »Body & Soil« dedicated to Hamburg-based artist Hoda Tawakol. Born in London in 1968 to Egyptian parents, Tawakol grew up primarily in Paris before later earning her Fine Arts diploma at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg. Her work is rooted in a profound exploration of diasporic identity, gender roles, matriarchy, and the body as a site of memory and transformation, where physical and ethereal forms of knowledge converge.

A Goddess made of textiles, fleece, ceramics, and object is being created specifially for this exhibition. Drawing inspiration from ancient Egyptian traditions of the divine feminine, the Goddess evokes creation, protection, renewal, and transformation. Through this contemporary embodiment of the feminine, the sculpture explores the interconnectedness of body, nature, and cosmos, inviting reflection on the generative power of life. The Goddess is accompanied by the textile mixed-media sculptures that have become characteristic of Tawakol’s artistic vocabulary: doll-like »Mummies« and a humanoid »Lure« embedded within two newly produced wall installations. These textile palm groves open up an allegorical in-between space of care, connection, and rootedness for the figures and bodies in the exhibition.

The palm tree—a recurring motif in Tawakol’s artistic work—evokes her inherited relationship with Egypt, a place known through family memory rather than lived experience. Rooted in a diasporic gaze, her work inhabits the space between cultures, where belonging is shaped not by a single homeland but by multiple histories and maternal lineages. The artist was raised by three different women—her mother, her grandmother, and her nanny—across two continents, shaping her understanding of femininity and motherhood through a mosaic of cultural traditions, expectations, and inherited memories. Inspired by her “three mothers,” Tawakol continues this exploration of home, cultural hybridity, and female lineage in her video work »My Mothers«, also presented at M.Bassy, alongside a new film produced especially for this exhibition.

Hoda Tawakol

Hoda Tawakol is a visual artist who lives and works in Hamburg. Born in London in 1968 to Egyptian parents, she grew up in both Frankfurt and Paris and earned her MBA in International Management in 1993 from EAP-ESCP with studies in Paris, Oxford, and Berlinin. From 2006 to 2011, Tawakol studied at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg under Professor Andreas Slominski. In 2010, she received a merit-based scholarship from the German Ministry of Science and Research. In 2022, she was an artist-in-residence at the Goethe-Institut in Marseille. In 2024, she received a publication grant from the Kunstfonds Foundation, which she used to produce her first monograph, »Some Ties Linger On« (Kerber Verlag).

Hoda Tawakol’s works have been exhibited at numerous institutions and galleries in Germany, including the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; the Georg Kolbe Museum in Berlin; the Museum Gunzenhauser in Chemnitz; the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art in Bremen; the Kunstverein Hamburg; the Kunsthaus Hamburg; the Produzentengalerie in Hamburg and Berlin; and the Sfeir-Semler Gallery in Hamburg and Beirut, Lebanon. Internationally, her art has also been on view at SAMOCA in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar; at Gallery Isabelle in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; at Villa Romana in Florence, Italy; and at the Museum for Art in Wood in Philadelphia, USA. Her works are held in numerous collections, including the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation (SHF), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority Collection, United Arab Emirates; the iSelf Collection, London, UK; the Naila Collection; the Progressive Art Collection, USA; Open Space Contemporary, Istanbul, Turkey, and London, UK; the Haus N Collection, Kiel; the Weserburg Museum Collection, Bremen; and in public spaces as part of Chemnitz’s designation as European Capital of Culture 2025.

hodatawakol.com

Opening: 21.12.2026, 7 PM, with an Artist Talk with Hoda Tawakol

Please reserve via: reservation@m-bassy.org

M.Bassy e.V., Schlüterstraße 80, 20146 Hamburg
Run time: 22.11. – 20.12.2026, Opening hours: Thu - Sun, 2 - 6 PM

Artist Workshop (date to be announced!)

We would like to thank the Henry Moore Foundation henry-moore.org, the Liebelt Stiftung, Hamburg and the Ministry of Culture and Media, Hamburg for their generous funding and support of the exhibition project.