The Gaza Biennale— a roving international exhibition that challenges the art world to reckon with the weight of the genocide in Gaza — announces the participating artists and programming for its upcoming New York Pavilion, the first iteration of the Biennale in the Americas. Titled From Gaza to the World, the exhibition will be on view at Brooklyn’s Recess from September 10-14, 2025, followed by an abbreviated version on display for three months from September 18 – December 20, 2025. Shaped by Palestinian artists who have been creating from Gaza throughout the genocide, the Biennale brings together a vast selection of artworks that have crossed closed borders, blockades and siege.
Launched in April 2024 and developed over the last 17 months with the Forbidden Museum of Jabal Al Risan (Al Risan Mountain, Palestine), the Gaza Biennale presents the work of over 50 artists from Gaza. Unable to host the exhibition within Palestine, the Gaza Biennale itself reflects a condition of displacement, dispersed among 17 pavilions — or jinnahs, meaning “branches” or “wing” — across the world. Today, most of the artists remain steadfast in Gaza, while some have been displaced outside. As such, the Biennale makes evident the challenges that Palestinian artists face in presenting their work globally, raising questions such as: how do you exhibit art that’s inaccessible while under siege, yet endures despite a genocide? Each artwork exists not as a reproduction but as a displaced form, ex situ. The Biennale declares that when art seeks liberation, it shatters worldviews, reorders geography and grants artists the autonomy to declare their humanity on a global stage.
The New York exhibition features the work of 25 artists from Gaza, reflecting 25 unique experiences that are unified by an urgent and uncompromising vision: to stand up for a people’s freedom against the forces that seek its destruction. Using leftover ashes of burned homes, Ahmed Adnan Alassar creates a surrealist panorama depicting epic tales of sacrifice, heroism, hardship, and life during genocide. Observing the daily struggles of those around him, Mohamed Moghari paints the legends of today. From her tent in a displacement camp, Malaka Abu Owda captures spirits born from the unspeakable. Taking refuge in a garage, Osama Husein Al Naqqa creates elaborate drawings with his finger on his phone, chronicling the physical and psychological exhaustion caused by genocide. Maysaa Yousef transforms the rubble of her home into a wonderland, making new multimedia collage works while running workshops with children. Through the eyes of one journalist, Eman Badwan’s docudrama, Live Broadcast, reveals the hardships Gaza’s media workers face, reminding us that even in the middle of chaos we still need to use the bathroom. “We never imagined that all the cameras would be useless,” the film begins as the narrator attempts to find a signal to broadcast.
The New York Pavilion: From Gaza to the World, presented in partnership with Recess, was envisioned as a synecdoche — a hub, a network — for the Biennale as a whole. The New York presentation will be on view concurrently with pavilions in Athens (September 18, 2025 – April 11, 2026) Istanbul (September 19 – November 14, 2025), Valencia (September 20 – December 30, 2025), Walla Walla, Washington (September 23 – November 23, 2025), Sarajevo (October 10 – November 7, 2025), and Berlin (November 21 – December 21, 2025).
New York Pavilion Artists:
Murad Al-Assar, Fatema Abu Owda, Malaka Abu Owda, Mosaab Abusall, Alaa Abu Seif, Ahmed Adnan Alassar, Ahmed Aladawi, Ghanem Alden, Mohamed Alhaj, Mohammed Al-Kurd, Mohannad Al-Sayes, Alaà Alshawa, Yahya Alsholy, Emad Badwan, Osama Husein Al Naqqa, Khaled Hussein, Aya Juha, Mohamed Moghari, Ahmad Muhanna, Motaz Naim, Ashraf Sahweil, Suhail Salem, Mohamed Suleiman, Fadel Tafesh, Firas Thabet, Maysaa Yousef and Yara Zuhod.
Press release from Recess
Image: Ahmad-Aladawi. By Fire by Blood. 2024. Wheat-pasted posters on plywood. 91 x 91 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and the Gaza Biennale
