Material Futures is a new programne for visual artists working with or developing sustainable materials and approaches as a key aspect of their work. Following an open call for applications, we are delighted to announce that the inaugural Material Futures Residencies have been awarded to the UK-based artists Niamh Schmidtke and Monya Riachi.

Monya Riachi is an artist and architect and works across sculpture, installation, moving image, sound and writing. Her practice is research-led and material driven, and centers matter as a site of meaning, narrative and archive. Through speculation and material inquiry, her work reflects on loss and the generative potential of matter.

Monya was born in a land where pine trees are centuries old and the sea is currency, at the end of a period omitted from history, in a country known today as Lebanon. She lives and works in the U.K and studied her MFA at Glasgow School of Art (2023). Her work has been exhibited in London, Glasgow and Beirut, and she completed a residency with Ashkal Alwan Beirut (2022).

Image: Monya Riachi, Where Bougainvilleas Bloom Ceaselessly (detail, photography by Chih-Kang Hsu).