Loving Algeria: Choukri Mesli’s Riposte to Violence
Words: Sheyda Aisha Khaymaz
Published: January 2026
In Nanterre, France, where a young Maghribian, Nahel Merzouk, was killed by police in 2023, Choukri Mesli once lived in exile after fleeing Algeria’s civil war in 1994, constituting yet another chapter in his life riddled with displacement. The Algerian painter’s sensuous female figures, rooted in ancient Saharan rock art, emerge as love letters to a homeland ravaged by centuries of violence, from colonial conquest to authoritarian rule. The article seeks to answer: What does it mean to love a place that has expelled you, and how does an artist respond to unrelenting brutality with beauty?
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An Arab Millennial Gap: Between Transnational and National Identities
Words by Nouf AlJahdami
Published: October 2018
Commissioned by Lungs Project
Nouf Aljahdami is a United Arab Emirates-based creative. Her work reflects her experimentation with traditional art, poetry, research and literature to explore topics of identity, spirituality, culture, and politics in the Middle East. She is currently a student of Security and Global Studies College and a graduate of Development Policy in African Affairs from MIT.
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Lungs Manifesto
Words by Angela Wingate-Burdon & Sheyda A. Khaymaz
Published: January 2018
Lungs Project is a space created by womxn of colour!
For the past two years, we have hoped to deliver a diverse programme both online and in print. Instead, we face the futility of trying to pursue diversity while at the same time being engrossed in the regional discourse of the North East of England.
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Trajectories of Collaborative Publishing Ethics
Words by Sheyda A. Khaymaz
Published: October 2017
In order to position Lungs within a contemporary context as a publication, it is crucial to conjure up the legacies of "magazine" as an alternative form of speech. A magazine, in its essence, is a periodical which comes from the Latin word, "periodicus," meaning "returning regularly." A magazine is thus determined by its seriality, its existence across time. Within the following paragraphs, we will aim to elaborate a model of curatorial ethics and a conceptual framework through which the second edition of Lungs came into being.
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