New Public Sculpture by Alia Gargum
We’re excited to share that artist Alia Gargum has been awarded a Henry Moore Foundation Winter Grant 2025 to produce a new public sculpture as part of FORGED which will go on display as part of Common Ground Micro-Farm (More information here).
The sculpture will invite reflection on nationality, displacement, and life under authoritarian rule, offering a visual and emotional space for dialogue among local, migrant, and diaspora communities. It will be designed to frame its surroundings and will prompt viewers to consider how identity is shaped by place, memory, and movement.
This project marks a continuation of Alia’s exploration into exile, identity, and power, rooted in her experience as a Libyan-British artist forcibly displaced from Libya. Growing up under the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi, Alia was deeply impacted by the atmosphere of fear and control that shaped daily life. Decades on, the lasting presence of both oppression and a complex nostalgia for home continues to inform her research and artistic practice.
More than a static object, this sculpture will function as both artwork and pedagogical tool, sparking public engagement around themes of forced displacement and the emotional terrain of migration. We look forward to seeing this one come together.
Find out more about Alia’s practice here
Images from ‘this was a mosque / مسجد كان هذا’, Middlesbrough Art Week 2024
FORGED is a dynamic collaborative project delivering an exciting programme of Public Art throughout 2024 and 2025 across the Tees Valley and beyond, they match funded this project with Alia and Middlesbrough Art Week.
FORGED is delivered by The Auxiliary and Navigator North and has been developed with support from Tees Valley Combined Authority. FORGED aspires to make the Tees Valley a nationally recognised production house of Public Art, offering first-hand experience to emerging and mid-career artists as well as working sector to sector, to develop lasting partnerships to increase support for public art and active audience engagement.
