Rihab Essayh

Driven to build worlds through installation, Moroccan-born, Montréal-based artist Rihab Essayh creates tactile and immersive environments that plunge audiences into her research on “radical softness” – a futurism movement suggesting that expressions of emotion and vulnerability are a political gesture in a society that prioritizes digital abundance, speed, intellect, and indifference. Essayh combines notions of softness and utopia with Afrofuturism to develop her ethos of Soft Futurism, a sensibility that uncompromisingly imagines new and equitable futures that identify vulnerability and interdependence as pillars of collective liberation and wellbeing.

The Visual Arts Centre of Clarington is thrilled to announce Essayh’s most extensive solo installation to date as our inaugural exhibition of the 2025 season. To our reunited future will comprise multimedia works from Essayh’s interdisciplinary practice, including large architectural dwellings made from sheer organza, textiles, drawings and video artworks across the VAC’s three gallery spaces. Inspired by North African aesthetics, such as handmade costumes by all-woman Moroccan Tbourida cavalry troupes and clay Berber architectures, Essayh will remodel the VAC’s galleries into a resting place that promotes collectivity and creates a soft community gathering space. Visitors can immerse themselves into a utopian community inspired by SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) women and their voices—similar to being welcomed into a familial home that personifies the warm and hopeful care practices outlined in Soft Futurism.

To our reunited future. is curated by Megan Kammerer and organized by the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Government of Ontario and Ada X.