Separated by Millennia
Separated by Millennia is a body of work exploring notions of survival, deep time, ancestry and ecology. Through a series of paintings on wooden panels, you are invited to follow the story of a mythical tribe of temporal nomads who work to preserve biodiversity, travelling not through space but through time. The paintings follow the tribe’s journey from living in relative harmony to their fracture and separation across timescapes, with the resultant Descendants and Ancestors longing for each other across thousands of years.
Al-Sarraj researches areas of Islamic astronomy, seasonality, and native knowledge systems to construct and imagine new worlds. The world constructed in this exhibition is one of these imaginaries; one where ancestral knowledge is used to steward the natural world, and power is used out of love for the other.
Situated within an ancestral assemblage where we are duty bound to those who came before us, Al-Sarraj’s work asks, how can we bring about intergenerational justice for those yet to come?
Separated By Millennia was co-commissioned by The Arab British Centre, as part of their As We Are, Might Have Been and Could Be visual arts programme, and Shubbak. Curated by Jessica El Mal.
For all sale enquiries, please contact the Arab British Centre.
The Dog Tooth of Time, 2024
Oil on wood panel
185 x 308 cm
Time Reckoning, 2024
Oil on wood panel
93 x 158 cm
Trophic Cascade, 2024 (detail)
Trophic Cascade, 2024 (detail)
Trophic Cascade, 2024
Oil on wood panel
165 x 95 cm
SuperGeneration, 2024
Oil on wood panel
72 x 96 cm
SuperGeneration, 2024 (detail)
7000 Gaits Apart (Diptych): Ancestor
Oil on wood panel
150 x 95 cm
7000 Gaits Apart (Diptych): Descendant
Oil on wood panel
150 x 95 cm
Exhibitions and Associated Public Programme
Separated by Millennia, Two Queens Gallery
11-27 October 2024
Separated by Millennia opened as part of Journeys Festival Intl and will be exhibited as part of Shubbak Festival in London in 2025.
All photography by Jules Lister.
Islamic Astronavigation and Art, National Space Centre
20th October, 2024
11am-4pm
Inspired by a new exhibition of paintings exploring migration, ancestry and time by Leicester artist Sarah Al-Sarraj at Two Queens Gallery, the National Space Centre presents an activity day dedicated to astronomy and Islam in collaboration with the New Crescent Society.
Talk by artist Sarah Al-Sarraj, LIVE Space
A talk by Sarah Al-Sarraj exploring world building and specifically conceptions of space and time from the Global Majority, with a focus on Islamic and Arabian history and folklore. Her presentation will touch on navigation methods native to the Arabian Peninsula, cartography, deep time and determinism.
Activities also included an Islamic planetarium show, a talk on Astronomy and Islam by the New Crescent Society, a talk by Sarah al-Sarraj, a science fiction DIY zine making workshop with Jessica El Mal.
Separated by Millennia: In Conversation with Helen Starr, Art/Work Association, Auto Italia
12th November, 2024
7 – 8pm
In the foreword to Never Whistle at Night, an Indigenous horror anthology, author Stephen Graham Jones reflects on settler land dispossession, asking: “So you took all that land you could see. But what about all this other territory you don’t even know about?” This question speaks to how, within many Global Majority cosmologies and ontological systems, alternate realms offer ways to understand erased histories, identities, and experiences. Spaces we cultivate—whether offline, online, in the Dreaming, the “third space,” or ancestral and spirit worlds—not only enable us to narrate our experiences but also act as counter-cartographies, reshaping how we view the world and resist ongoing oppressions.
The virtual realm is one such space that Global Majority artists are increasingly exploring to centre previously marginalised experiences and knowledge systems, adapting digital tools not designed for us to tell stories that help reshape our world.