Lineal: Solo Exhibition featuring Rania Hassan
The Silva Gallery x Latela Curatorial is pleased to present Lineal, a solo exhibition of mixed media artworks by artist Rania Hassan. The exhibition will be on view from September 5 through December 28, 2025. A public reception will be held for the artist on Friday, September 5th from 6-8pm.
Exhibition Artwork: Tangle
Known for her public sculptures and large-scale museum installations, Hassan offers an intimate glimpse into her practice in Lineal, where framed drawings are displayed next to delicate cut outs and mixed media woven installations. With this collection of artworks, Hassan experiments with familiar materials and technical studies in new ways, resulting in a process-centered ode to the craft of knitting, its communal properties, labor, and memory.
"I am drawn to the small details and moments that shape my work, exploring what happens when I take things apart and weave them back together at different scales and with different materials. Much like memory itself, parts shift, repeat, and form new patterns." - Hassan
Tangle, an installation that combines tiny canvases of hyper realistic open mouths connected by one woven tapestry, speaks to our collective nature. We are encouraged to consider language, voice, and the tangled words that we weave in and out of our shared communication. This artwork presents a sense of togetherness and collective understanding.
Hassan’s framed drawings represent stitches coming together and/or apart. She draws these varied stitches from memory, centering memory as a source material which further emphasizes an intimacy and dedication to the tradition of knitting, which was taught to her by her mother and represents a long lineage of devotion to the craft by the women in her family. Upon a second glance, these sketches also have a likeness to gauze: the woven structure used for mending physical wounds. This is no coincidence, as Hassan intentionally considers themes of protection, care and repair.
Recent experimentations in her practice have resulted in paper cut outs of knitting drawings, and their reliefs. These forms directly resemble the detailed loops created from machine knitting, which was a method acquired by the artist when attempting to scale-up in production. Recounting these forms, also by memory, highlights the labor and perfectionism connected to the practice of knitting. By enlarging these microscopic details into larger forms, cutting them out, and weaving them back together, Hassan draws parallels between her intrigue in knitting patterns, post-production, and the continuing notion of mending or repair.
"The repetitive motions of my imagined drawings follow the quiet rules of knitting, each line shaped by the repetition of a single stitch, a rhythm symbolizing both attention and the passage of time." - Hassan
Presenting these artworks along a narrow hallway augments the themes Hassan wants to highlight in this body of work. Hallways represent a liminal space, and mending happens with time. Hallways can also represent straight paths, when we know that often the journey is more tangled (or woven) than direct. The nonlinearity of in between or liminal spaces – or times of great collective transition – can be hazy, like memory. However, when focusing on the process and collective labor, mending is possible.
Lineal by Rania Hassan is on display at The Silva Gallery x Latela Curatorial September 5 – December 28, 2025. Located at The Silva DC: 1630 Columbia Rd NW, Washington, DC 20009. Open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm and Sun noon-5pm. A public reception will be held for the artist on Friday, September 5th from 6-8pm.
All artwork displayed is available for purchase. Inquiries should be directed to studio@lateladc.com
About the Gallery:
The Silva Gallery x Latela Curatorial at the Silva provides additional exhibition opportunities and curated promotion to local artists in the Greater Washington, DC area. The art gallery, located in the building's reception area, is open to the public Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. through 5 p.m. and Sundays from noon until 5 p.m. For updates on exhibition openings and other art related events, visit here.
About the Artist:
Rania Hassan is a Lebanese-American artist who knits threads to weave sculptural stories about our connections to time, place, and circumstance. Her large-scale installations span public art, performance, and sculpture and include site-responsive and interactive kinetic works. The five main themes she works with embody ideas of community, synchronicity, identity, time, and memory. Her greatest inspiration is knitting itself—with one line of thread and the same stitch as every generation that came before, anything is possible. The thread represents our lives and all the different interpretations and paths we may follow. Through a single thread, we are all connected. Her work ranges in scale from modular arrangements of 3 x 4 inch drawings to 40 x 40 x 40 foot suspended installations and materials vary from delicate combinations of the finest threads to 1,500 pounds of curved sheets of cut steel. Recent projects include Liminality at the Kreeger Museum, a hand knit suspended installation activating the museum’s grand three level staircase for the very first time. Marker, a 15 foot tall bright pink sculpture made of steel, has been present at the highly visible intersection of Connecticut Ave and K Street NW in downtown Washington, DC since October 2020. Commissioned by the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District and the Smithsonian Institution, Marker represents a beacon for the Smithsonian’s Women’s History Initiative and helps expand their visibility to the streets of DC. Rania’s artwork is included in the permanent collections of the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD), Amazon Web Services (Herndon, VA), and the District of Columbia’s Art Bank Collection (Washington, DC). She has been featured in numerous publications worldwide including Smithsonian Magazine, a cover story for TextielPlus (Netherlands), and the Washington Post. In 2009, she received a Craft Award of Excellence from the James Renwick Alliance and has been awarded multiple Arts and Humanities Fellowship Program Grant Awards from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
About Latela Curatorial:
Based in Washington DC with presence in Los Angeles, Barcelona and Milan, Latela Curatorial is an international art advisory and curatorial studio serving art collectors, design and corporate professionals, institutions, artists, and communities.
For all projects, LC's mission is to continuously question how support is defined in the artworld and to advocate on behalf of the artist and arts workers. LC's attitude is to nurture with a matriarchal approach: creating generative and sustainable opportunities for artists, collectors and communities alike.
About The Silva:
Developed by EastBanc and Mitsui Fudosan America, Inc. and managed by Bozzuto, The Silva features 172 thoughtfully designed apartments ranging from studios to two bedrooms, including 10 penthouse suites, making it the ideal home for residents looking to immerse themselves in the eclectic lifestyle of Adams Morgan while experiencing the best of high-end living. At The Silva, residents will find a rooftop terrace with sweeping views of the Capitol and the Washington Monument from the building’s infinity pool, a private courtyard with lush greenery, and within each unit, state-of-the-art appliances and acoustical design.
Prospective residents can learn more about the building and pre-leasing options by visiting www.thesilvadc.com.