Je suis inculte ! revisits the legacy of the annual juried Salon d’Automne in Beirut from the Sursock Museum’s inauguration in 1961 — the year the private villa of Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock became the first, and only, public museum of modern and contemporary art in Beirut — until the present day. The salon served as an appropriate exhibition model for a newly independent nation, as an academy capable of training young artists, and as a tastemaker for audiences.
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The exhibition explores light’s multifaceted impact. Featuring contemporary installations by prominent international and Canadian artists, including Anila Quayyum Agha, Tannis Nielsen, Olafur Eliasson, Kimsooja, and Anish Kapoor, the exhibition delves into how light shapes history and continues to influence our perceptions, emotions, and understanding of the world.
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Curated by Idil Tabanca, this exhibition features international artists and designers whose creations transcend traditional boundaries in painting, sculpture, installation, and furniture design, redefining the relationship between form and function. In an era where modern humans spend more than three-quarters of their lives indoors, nature feels more distant than ever. “Creatures of Comfort” explores works that create space for nature to re-enter our urban lives.
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The exhibition, presenting an up-to-date selection from the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, focuses on how spiral cycles, which define human existence, are interpreted by contemporary artists. Evolving regularly since the 2000s through commissions and acquisitions, the collection provides viewers with an in-depth interaction with different formations, issues, and ways of seeing in today’s world, bringing together works by artists who navigate between the physical and virtual realms.
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Between the Tides: A Gulf Quinquennial delves into the evolving artistic landscape of the GCC, featuring 21 artists and collectives from across the region, including the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Set to recur every five years, it showcases works across the fields of visual arts, architecture, and design, featuring painting, video, installation, and sculpture. Rather than a comprehensive survey, this exhibition reflects on significant moments within the field of visual production from the last five years.
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How is a nation created? Aseel AlYaqoub explores the nation as imagined or invented, shaped by heritage sites, postage imagery, military ceremonies, maps and architecture. The exhibition marks the first presentation of a decade-long series of works engaging with symbols and narratives related to Kuwaiti nationhood and Arab identity, spanning from the postcolonial era to the present.
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Tala Madani’s first solo exhibition in Washington State presents all-new work commissioned by the Henry Gallery, continuing her exploration of symbols, language, and power dynamics in society. Known for her provocative paintings and installations, Madani blends humor with critical insight, often depicting vulnerable, violent, and perplexed human figures. Her characters inhabit detailed, dream-like spaces that evoke the unconscious. Madani’s use of light as a medium exposes and reveals, while new works, including mural-like paintings and film-strip animations, deepen her practice. Visitors are immersed in a multi-sensory experience, engaging with her fantastical characters and uncanny imagery.
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“Journey of Colors” showcases 125 photographs from İzzet Keribar’s vast archive, highlighting his mastery of color, light, and composition. Spanning from the 1950s to today, the exhibition captures Istanbul’s evolving streets, global landscapes, and striking portraits. Keribar transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary, inviting viewers on a visual journey through history, culture, and emotion, creating a universal language through imagery.
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The inaugural Biennial explores the evolving concept of public space in Abu Dhabi through the lens of four main factors: environment, community, urbanity, and indigeneity; it investigates how environmental conditions influence gathering places and interactions, and how they define what is considered public space. It examines the interplay between the city’s modern development and its indigenous practices, addressing the challenge of preserving traditional values amid urban growth and economic diversification.
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Taking its title from a poem by artist Seher Shah, ‘We saw an endless cycle’ speaks to the ways in which artists bear witness to the city. The exhibition brings together works by artists whose practices closely engage with the city through intimate gestures, often in the form of movements like walking and crawling; acts of recording and reinterpretation through photographing, painting, drawing, writing, sculpting and practices of counter mapping. These gestures find their echoes across decades and geographies. Together, they reflect a recurring impulse to contend with the dynamism, contradictions, and politics of the urban sphere through intimate, often repetitive, and at times disruptive action.
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“Extend your five fingers. Cover your face with your palm. Bite down between your teeth—our house does not ask for your opinion! ““Biting Between One’s Teeth”” is a non-verbal conversation pit that addresses silence, in a vividly familial place, where we shut up, and mutely shout out: Houses. Our houses. May you catch fleeting emotions, images, and ideas at the periphery of your vision. May you hum an ode to the lost, yearning for a spirit that shatters all transformations.
Welcome! Enter with your right foot.”
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From Doha to Damascus, AI-backed tools are revolutionizing journalism, augmenting the creation, distribution and consumption of media. However, the motives behind AI’s use remain contentious, with concerns about deception, undermining public trust and perpetuating societal divisions. Through evidence-based storytelling, data visualization, case studies and artistic interpretations, the exhibition explores four key themes: Hindsight, Insight, Oversight and Foresight.
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Drawing on the extraordinary collections of the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, ‘Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine’ explores both the historical and contemporary importance of the Palestinian tradition of tatreez – an ancient practice primarily undertaken by women, that reflects the social and cultural landscape of a turbulent history for the Palestinian people.
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What Lies Beneath explores identity as a fluid, ever-transforming process. The exhibition presents the body as an archive of memory and metamorphosis, where gestures and rituals become tools for change. Through contrasts—rigid vs. malleable, organic vs. mechanical—the works reveal hidden layers of existence. Materiality plays a key role, shaping a space where the unspeakable takes form and the unseen surfaces.
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“the bahrain annual fine arts exhibition, inaugurated in 1972, has grown into a vital institution that not only showcases the evolution of visual arts in bahrain but also serves as a cultural dialogue platform in the gulf region. in its fifty-first edition, the exhibition features over 65 artists, each contributing their unique voice in a diverse array of mediums—including painting, sculpture, photography, and digital arts. the selection of artworks presented show a rich tapestry of perspectives, where local motifs connect with global themes, and traditional techniques are reinterpreted through contemporary viewpoints.
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A Shroud is a Cloth by Adrian Pepe explores themes of memory, renewal, and material transformation using a woolen textile that previously wrapped a building damaged in the 2020 Beirut Port Explosion • The Lebanon-based Honduran artist’s practice highlights the relationship between materials, cultural landscapes, and ecological intimacy, presenting a poetic dialogue on transformation and resilience.
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Bringing together artists from Tate’s Collection, Gathering Ground explores the connection between environmental and social justice. Featuring works by Outi Pieski, Abbas Akhavan, Bruce Conner, Zheng Bo, and others, the exhibition honors Indigenous knowledge, queer multispecies relations, and the impact of land displacement. Set in a former power station, it invites reflection on our role in shaping a more just and sustainable future.
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Drawing on the treasures preserved in the IMA Museum’s collections, this exhibition highlights a richness and diversity like no other: that of Arabic calligraphy in all its expression, from the first pages of the Quran to its investment in new media.
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Etel Adnan (1925–2021) was a celebrated author, poet, and artist. Known for seamlessly blending writing and art, her paintings gained prominence after dOCUMENTA 13 (2012). Solo shows include K20, Düsseldorf (2023), Van Gogh Museum (2022), SFMoMA (2018), Institut du Monde Arabe (2016), and more. Group shows featured her work at MoMA, NY (2017), Sharjah Biennial (2015), and Istanbul Biennial (2015). Her art is in public collections like MoMA, Centre Pompidou, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and Mathaf, Qatar. Adnan’s tapestries also adorn public and private spaces worldwide.
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Sharjah Biennial 16, titled “to carry,” is a multivocal, open‐ended invitation to explore diverse formations and the many ways we bear histories, memories, and dreams. It challenges us to reflect on what we carry when we travel, flee, or remain, linking precarious present spaces with intergenerational legacies and imagined futures. Through a range of curatorial practices—from residencies and workshops to sonic experiments and expanded publications—the Biennial becomes a collective wayfinding process. In this threshold of dialogue and experimentation, art and community converge to share stories of resilience and transformation. Each work deeply echoes hope, and relentless renewal in fine art.
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Hussein Nassereddine’s solo show at Beirut Art Center presents the artist’s profound exploration of time and memory. It delves into the fates of the years, both near and far, through the lens of language, song, and personal history.
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The solo exhibition by Berlin-based collective Slavs and Tatars, Simurgh, explores themes of unity, coexistence, and belonging through sound, glasswork, textiles, and mirrors. Inspired by the mythological Simurgh, the show connects Persianate and Eurasian histories with local traditions of Baden-Baden. Transforming the Kunsthalle into a space for dialogue, Simurgh reimagines storytelling as a living, regenerative force bridging past and present.
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From a large number of applications, a jury of five art professionals has nominated a total of eight artists who live or work in Neukölln. Galerie im Saalbau presents the works of the nominees in a group exhibition, giving visitors an authentic insight into the diverse art production of Neukölln artists.
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YAY Gallery presents Identity Drift, Said Sharif’s first solo exhibition, exploring identity and self-expression. The show features six years of documentary photography, site-specific installations, and ready-made objects. Highlights include Papag, a playful take on traditional Caucasian hats, and Windy Windshields, an archival project on Baku’s car culture. A VAZ-21011 Zhiguli car is displayed, reflecting the Avtosh subculture’s influence.
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Working across drawing, writing, performance, and sculpture, Ghandour blends imaginative storytelling with factual observation.
Drawing from her experiences in Dubai, Sharjah, Cairo, and Rotterdam, Rooms for Error examines the fast-forward city—a place where infrastructure struggles to keep up with expansion, where characters exist in a state of chronic uncertainty, and where architecture itself seems on the verge of collapse. The works reflect on the adaptability, or failure of the human body in these unstable environments.
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This isn’t just any exhibition — it’s the first travelling group show featuring Saudi contemporary artists. You’ll discover works from 17 prominent talents, each bringing their unique perspectives to the table. With a range of mediums including paintings, installations, and video works, the pieces explore Saudi Arabia’s rich history, collective memory and cultural traditions. Previously showcased at the historic Paço Imperial in Rio de Janeiro, the exhibition drew an impressive crowd of 26,000 visitors.
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YARAT Contemporary Art Space presents Me and the Ark, Me and the Great Flood, a group exhibition inspired by Nasimi’s philosophy. Featuring sculptures, installations, and audiovisual works by Azerbaijani and international artists, the show explores perception, identity, and the blurring of boundaries in the digital age. Through diverse media, the exhibition reflects on inclusion, decolonization, and our responsibility in shaping the world.
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“The Deep Purple Belongs to the Irises” is a group exhibition that showcases the artwork of 32 artists and is curated by Abar Studio, in Collaboration with 8cube Gallery.
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Mellal Gallery presents “Beyond the Mirage”, an exploration of illusion, imagination, and surrealism in Iranian contemporary art. Featuring diverse artists, the exhibition delves into the fusion of dreams and reality, nostalgia and futurism. Through painting, sculpture, and mixed media, artists reinterpret surrealism with a unique cultural lens
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A Few 10 Works Worth a Few 10 Million is agroup exhibition takes place at Art Center from 28 February to 13 April.
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Yasaman Nozari, born in Tehran, merges her Iranian heritage with modern European influences, creating an abstract visual language that reflects Belgium’s cultural diversity. Her bold palette of magenta, orange, green, and blue evokes deep emotional and spiritual resonance. Blending shapes, colors, and lines, her work transcends cultural boundaries, offering a meditative aesthetic that speaks to universal themes of identity and connection.
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Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) and the KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art present recent works by international artists who were awarded the 2024 visual arts work stipend of the Berlin Senate. Spanning two venues, the exhibition features works across the mediums of video, sound, painting, sculpture, installation, and performance.
Curator: Sadaf Vasaei
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Zilberman presents In the Family of Things, Itamar Gov’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, on view from March 4 to May 15, 2025. Inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese, Gov explores identity, memory, and uncertainty through diverse media. His works examine time’s fluidity and the tension between history and the future, inviting viewers to reflect on their place within intimate and collective narratives.
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Showcasing Ali Akbar Sadeghi’s journey from sketches to vibrant paintings, the works reflect both youthful energy and artistic mastery. Drawing from Persian mythology, the artist blends miniature-style storytelling with surrealism, pop art, and modern elements, creating a unique, recognizable world that bridges past and present.
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The exhibition Musafiri: Of Travellers and Guests explores the shared linguistic and cultural resonance of the word musafir, meaning ‘traveller’ and, in some languages, ‘guest.’ It reflects on migration, displacement, and hospitality, tracing journeys from historical figures like Lourenço da Silva Mendonça to modern migrant workers. Through art and history, it questions power, belonging, and the structures that define who is welcomed and who remains a perpetual traveller.
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The Azerbaijan National Museum of Art presents Y. Pen, Y. Kruger: Founders of Art Education in Belarus, an exhibition celebrating the 170th anniversary of Yuri Pen and the 155th anniversary of Yakov Kruger. Showcasing 61 paintings and graphic works from the National Art Museum of Belarus, it highlights the artistic legacy of these influential mentors and their students, including Marc Chagall and Michael Kikoine.
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Galerist presents The Volcano Lover, curated by Anlam de Coster. Featuring 40 artists from five continents, it explores volcanoes as symbols of destruction, renewal, and primal energy. Inspired by Susan Sontag’s novel, the exhibition constructs an allegorical volcano, linking mythology, alchemy, and cosmic forces. Amid global upheaval, it reflects on nature’s power, suppressed desires, and the cycle of chaos and rebirth.
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Pi Artworks Istanbul presents Touched by Image, a solo exhibition by Aslı Torcu exploring the disappearance and rebirth of images in uncertainty. Torcu’s multilayered paintings reflect the paradoxes of memory and time, where past, present, and future intertwine. Inviting contemplation, the works reveal an evolving visual language shaped by spontaneity, erasure, and re-emergence.
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The exhibition “From Paper to Canvas” by Ali Akbar Sadeghi runs at Hoor Art Gallery from 7 March to 13 April. Showcasing his journey from sketches to vibrant paintings, the works reflect both youthful energy and artistic mastery. Drawing from Persian mythology, Sadeghi blends miniature-style storytelling with surrealism, pop art, and modern elements, creating a unique, recognizable world that bridges past and present.
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‘I Paint Your Grace, I Paint Your Pain, I Paint Love’ , unveils a compelling selection of never-before-exhibited works that delve into themes of memory, identity, and transformation. Marking his first solo exhibition in half a decade, the show presents artworks from three of his acclaimed series: The Hunt / Riders, Day and Night / Fig Leaf, and Migration / Grey Zone. In these works, past and present converge, offering a rare glimpse into Derakshani’s artistic vision where form, color, and narrative intertwine in a profound exploration of the human experience.
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The exhibition of artworks by Amirhossein Alavijeh, entitled “Humpty Dumpty”, takes place at Maryam Art Gallery in collaboration with Yafteh Gallery. Humpty Dumpty is a well-known character in children’s literature, originating from an English nursery rhyme. He is usually depicted as an anthropomorphic egg in modern illustrations, although the original rhyme makes no mention of him being an egg. This rhyme has roots in English folklore and has been interpreted in various ways. Some consider it a metaphor for historical figures like King Richard III or political events.
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Pourquoi il fait si sombre? exhibition showcases artworks from different periods of Ayman Baalbaki’s career, recently featured during the filming of a documentary on Ayman Baalbaki shot at DAF’s galleries. The exhibition also brings together artworks by Fawzi Baalbaki, Ayman’s father, and Marwan Kassab Bachi, Ayman’s mentor, two artists who have profoundly influenced the development of Ayman Baalbaki’s work.
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Yeşim Akdeniz’s practice engages with Orientalism, gender and queer studies, and cultural appropriation. Primarily focused on painting, her work is infused with symbolic narratives that can be read as signs of cultural production, negotiation and appropriation. Her most recent series of works combine autobiographical elements with (art)- historical narratives that position questions on identity formation along with ascriptions and self-attributions of objects as representations of political structures.
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This is the first major solo exhibition in Italy of Iranian artist Shirin Neshat. It spans more than 30 years of Neshat’s career, featuring nearly 200 photographs and ten video installations. Neshat interprets both the history and present of her homeland, Iran, and the wider world through a female perspective. Her work delves deep into social and political issues.
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GAZELL.iO presents Morehshin Allahyari in the Project Space, coinciding with her April residency. The exhibition features Speculations on Capture (2024), a poetic film first showcased at the Victoria and Albert Museum, exploring displaced Islamic astronomical instruments through digital reconstruction. Allahyari, known for conceptualizing “digital colonialism,” challenges museum frameworks by blending historical research with speculative fiction, reimagining lost narratives. Through 3D scanning and digital intervention, she reclaims cultural memory, reshaping how heritage is preserved and understood.
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Featuring a diverse range of artworks—including visual installations, photography, sound pieces, and video works—the exhibition brings together the work of eighteen artists and artist duos from occupied Palestine and the diaspora. Their collective practice expands and liberates the notion of the archive, transforming it from a rigid tool to define identity into a generative space for reclaiming imagination and envisioning the future.
Curator: Reem Shadid
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The Image Festival Amman, organized by Darat Al Tasweer since 2011 in partnership with many local and international institutes, aims to create a gathering platform for photographers in the region, attract a wider audience and create opportunities for sustainable cultural exchanges, involving both professional and amateur photographers.
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Salt’s 2025 screening program Is this our last chance? explores the environmental and social aspects of climate change, focusing on humanity’s dependence on water. Through films depicting ecological crises, industrial impacts, and water justice struggles, the program underscores water as both a life source and a battleground, urging reflection on sustainable coexistence.
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A group exhibition entitled “Solos”, featuring one piece from each of Emkan’s artists, is being held at the gallery.
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In The Promise, artist Bashir Makhoul reflects on home as both a sanctuary and a site of loss. Born in Galilee and now based in Canada, Makhoul explores his relationship with his homeland in this exhibition, examining its emotional and psychological complexities. His work captures the tension between nostalgia and rupture, presence and displacement, permanence, and impermanence.
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New American Realism features more than 150 works by American artists from the Tony and Elham Salamé collection, presented in collaboration with their Aïshti Foundation. One of today’s most dynamic contemporary art institutions, the Foundation was established twenty-five years ago by the Italian-Lebanese entrepreneur Tony Salamé.
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Ayyam Gallery is pleased to present Tterss a solo exhibition featuring Sama Alshaibi’s most recent body of work. The exhibition brings together mixed-media collages and video art that reimagine Baghdad’s transformation—its peaks, declines, and latent possibilities. Through Alshaibi’s work, Baghdad becomes a site of physical presence and alternative visions—one that is ““always mediated, annotated, and glimpsed through shifting thresholds.
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In her work, Maryam Hoseini explores the concept of ruins in a politicized social space. Hoseini captures empty historical echoes as bodies walk among the literal and figurative, the visible and invisible ruins of objects and architectures. In the context of the censored female figure, Hoseini presents her subjects as nude, cast simultaneously as unrealistically flattened diagrams of the human body, and hyperrealistic disembodied limbs covered in hair. Her recent work is made up of multiple fragments, strategically balanced upon one another and anchored into the wall behind at a single point, where she builds her ongoing curiosity in space and sequence as a formula for a narrative where she confronts her viewers perception, preoccupation and projections of identity. These interjections within the gallery’s white cube serve as a way in which the artist rebuilds and elevates these fractured stories, now sturdily supported with weighted columns of opaque color.
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The program features recent short animated films by The Hakawi Animation Team, and animators Naaman Azhari, and Arash Akhgari, presenting perspectives from characters that refuse to silently accept the conditions or struggles they face. Included are stories told from children’s perspectives who plainly see and refute their unjust situations, brought about either from within their own societies or by occupying forces. Other perspectives highlight protest movements or a rejection of the world as we know it.
Curated by Lila Nazemian
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