At The Last Sky

At The Last Sky

 
 
 

Oct 3rd -
Dec 13th, 2025

 

The Luminary is pleased to present At The Last Sky, a new exhibition featuring the work of St. Louis-based Palestinian artist Kiki Salem

 

Opening Reception: Oct 3rd, 2025 from 6-9pm

 
 
 
 

The Luminary is pleased to present its fall exhibition, At The Last Sky, featuring new work by St. Louis-based Palestinian artist Kiki Salem on view from Oct 3rd to Dec 13, 2025.

 

Through suspended carpets, salvaged embroidery, and glowing digital patterning, Salem creates immersive environments that explore memory, resilience, and cultural survival.


Developed over two years of research, residencies, and travel to Palestine and places like her hometown of Beitin, Masafer Yatta, and Amman, Jordan. At The Last Sky draws on stories and materials gathered with artisans, family members, and cultural workers. The exhibition spans installation, sculptural tapestry, painting, digital animation, and graphic wallpaper, creating an immersive environment balancing fragility and strength, evoking both healing and violence, presence and absence.

Highlights include 48 suspended carpets made from gauze and razor wire—materials that recall both care and conflict. Gauze, derived from the Arabic word ghazza, references Gaza’s historic role as a center of textile production. Once a fabric of healing, gauze now bears the weight of scarcity and displacement, transformed here into fragile monuments of memory. Elsewhere, Salem salvages fragments of Tatreez embroidery from workshop floors, stitching them into new constellations that revive what might otherwise be discarded.

Across the exhibition, Salem asks what role art can play in the face of genocide and what she calls cultural memoricide, where traditions, languages, and lineages are systematically erased. Sacred geometry and digital patterning extend this practice, filling the gallery with floor-to-ceiling neon wallpaper that the artist describes as a “carnival of emotion.” The excess, rhythm, and instability of these works mirror the persistence of culture even under conditions of extreme precarity.

Borrowing its title from poet Mahmoud Darwish, At The Last Sky evokes a space between mourning and possibility. Salem’s work extends a tradition in which art resists erasure. In reassembling what remains, she builds new structures of belonging and endurance.

Accompanying Programs

At The Last Sky will be accompanied by a series of public programs that invite visitors to engage directly with the artist and her practice.

  • Opening Reception — October 3, 6–9 PM
    Celebrate the launch of the exhibition with conversation, drinks, and music. Free and open to all.

  • Weaving Demonstration — October 18, 12–4 PM
    Kiki Salem will activate her large loom in the gallery, offering visitors a chance to watch her process and try weaving themselves.

  • Cherokee Street Print Bazaar — December 4
    Salem and her project PunkAssArab will take part in the neighborhood’s annual print bazaar with limited edition prints, apparel, and more.

  • Artist Talk — December 13, 2–4 PM
    Closing the exhibition, Salem will discuss her work, process, and themes in a public conversation.

At The Last Sky is collaboratively organized by the artist and The Luminary’s staff and volunteers, including Kristina Murray (Gallery Manager), Kevin Harris and Kellen Wright (Fabrication and Tech), Kentaro Kumanomido (Deputy Director), and Kalaija Mallery (Executive and Artistic Director). The exhibition reflects The Luminary’s commitment to artist-led practice and sustained inquiry into art’s role in cultural preservation.

 

About the Artist

 

Kiki Salem (b. 1995, Al-Bireh, Palestine) is a St. Louis-based artist who combines ancient visual patterns and traditional craft to create vibrant hybridized works. Born to a Palestinian father and a Palestinian-Brazilian mother, her multicultural, multilingual, transcontinental upbringing has informed an art practice that transcends and accompanies commonality. Through an experimental approach to material and color, she is able to reimagine textile and architectural design from the Arab/Muslim world into sculptural weavings, large scale murals, tapestry, animation, tattoo and print. Her wearable graphic project, PunkAssArab, has allowed her to reach a global audience through the exploration of the Arabic language and themes central to the Arab diasporic experience. Kiki is a member of the Screwed Arts Collective in St. Louis. She has taught Palestinian Tatreez workshops at UCLA, the University of Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the University of Minnesota. Her work has been exhibited at the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cue Art Foundation in New York, SpaceHub in Birzeit, and has been featured or has appeared in Hyperallergic, Vogue, GQ Middle East, Southern Graphics Council International (SGCI), Middle East Monitor and The Brooklyn Rail.

 

About The Luminary

The Luminary is a non-profit, artist-led contemporary arts organization committed to artistic experimentation and resourced engagement. Through its exhibitions, residencies, and public programs, The Luminary nurtures artists and sparks critical dialogue within the St. Louis community and beyond.

At The Last Sky is generously supported by the Teiger Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Crawford Taylor Foundation, and individual donors. This exhibition is part of The Luminary's ongoing series of programs that champion new artistic visions and foster critical discourse, co-creating new futures.

For more information about At The Last Sky and other upcoming events at The Luminary, please contact Kentaro Kumanomido (kentaro@theluminaryarts.com).

UpcomingGuest User2025