Opening: Friday, September 19, 18:00

Curated by House of Taswir and associates. In collaboration with over 50 artists from the Gaza Biennale Initiative, the Forbidden Museum of Jabal Al Risan in Palestine, and Addar Center İstanbul.

GAZA BIENNALE – THE ISTANBUL PAVILION features the work of over 50 artists from Gaza, Palestine, and beyond. The exhibition unfolds across three floors at Depo, Istanbul during the 18th International Istanbul Biennale and is curated by House of Taswir in collaboration with the artists of the Gaza Biennale and international collaborators.

In 2024, in a breathtaking act of artistic defiance—and in collaboration with the Forbidden Museum of Jabal Al Risan in Palestine mountain near Ramallah—artists in Gaza launched the Gaza Biennale from a beach under siege. Since then, art institutions worldwide have begun hosting Gaza Biennale Pavilions—acts of diasporic solidarity that replace national representations with a transnational practice of artistic affinity and alliance.

Due to the ongoing genocidal war, the forced famine and closed borders devastating Gaza and Palestine, most Gazan artists are unable to travel, and their works cannot physically cross borders. In response, THE ISTANBUL PAVILION—together with the Gazan artists collective—re-imagines exhibition practices through co-creation, ghost-writing, tele-conversations, and collaborative installations.

Since its inception, in gestures of overwhelming generosity, more than twenty international artists have joined the GAZA BIENNALE – THE ISTANBUL PAVILION by donating works in support of the Palestinian artists. We are proud to show works by Alfredo Jaar, Walid Raad, Shirin Neshat, Elisabeth Masé, Furkan Akhan, Khaled Tanji, Ghayath Almadhoun, Christine Gedeon, Michael Barenboim, and more.

Featured formats include video portraits, mobile phone dialogues, wall writings, a table of scholars, a poetry festival, and the emergence of a Museum of Affinities and of Distant Collaborations. A public program of film screenings, poetry evenings, and in-situ conversation with the Gazan artists will be held during the entire seven weeks of the Biennale.

This exhibition is made possible by the support of family and friends, individual colleagues and artists, by spontaneous encounters and unexpected generosities.

“No war can stop the dreams of dreamers, and no mechanism of domination extinguish the light in the hearts and minds of creators.”

— Gaza Biennale Collective Statement, 2024