Between Bodies: Hoda Tawakol

Death has never been more alive. Rising tolls seep into our daily newsfeeds; images of the deceased pile up in worldwide media; and mortality rates are on (nearly) every global leader’s lips.

For her second solo show at Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Hoda Tawakol fathoms death less as an end than as a promise of renewal. In works ranging from large-scale textile pieces to more intimate sculptures, Tawakol freeze-frames an instance of transition, a moment teetering between presence and absence, physical and ethereal.

Liminality is her realm. Here, the body reigns, and the cocoon is the ideal metaphor for this in-between state. The works capture a brief suspension within a transformative cycle, notably the passage beyond death, witnessed by the ancient cocoon-like figures of mummies, sarcophagi, and pyramids.