“Swarm/Sarab” Exhibition – Second Edition, 2023

Curated by Nadeem Mazen at the Yabous Cultural Centre, the exhibition was hosted in the Mahmoud Darwish Lounge, 10 Zahra Street, Jerusalem, as part of the annual Jerusalem Festival 2023.

A gathering of Palestinian artists came together to explore freedom and restrictions, whether personal or collective, through their works using diverse materials and mediums.

The exhibition delves into the constraints and limitations imposed on both private and public spaces, shaped by political, social, legal, and psychological challenges faced within Palestinian society. These restrictions affect not only individuals, but also landscapes, plants, and animals, ultimately threatening basic and collective freedoms.

The lack of awareness and knowledge of rights, alongside the failure to practice our human, cultural, and democratic freedoms, continues to weigh heavily. As a society, we have not yet healed from the legacies of oppression, imprisonment, censorship, and silencing, consequences that have shaped the boundaries of living, communication, and expression across both private and public spheres.

Participating artists: 

Janan Abdu, Joseph Rishmawi, Khaled Hourani, Rama Alashqar, Shatha Safi, Sabreen AlHaj Ahmad, AbdulRahman Hashlamon, Alaa AlBaba, Mahmoud Hamed, Marah Faraht, Marah Ghanaiem,  Mays Shkerat, Heba Tannous, Hala Jawhar, Yazan Abu Salameh

Yabous Cultural Centre has set its sights on encouraging, promoting, and developing individual artistic abilities through workshops, seminars, competitions, and supporting artists and individuals, out of our belief in the individual's ability to change. Accordingly, in April 2023, the Yabous Center invited artists to participate in the competition to design the poster for the Jerusalem Festival 2023, “Rise Up, O Jerusalem.” The winning artwork will become the official poster design for the festival. More than twenty artists, male and female designers, from Palestine and the diaspora participated in the competition. The festival committee worked hard to evaluate the works that were presented within criteria related to content, design, clarity, simplicity, lines, balance and consistency, colors, titles, the design’s connection to the festival’s theme and their individual vision of its subject, in addition to how to translate the concepts of freedoms and restrictions in the submitted design. Eleven of the submitted works have been selected for their participation in the Jerusalem Festival 2023 exhibition "Swarm Exhibition 2023", in appreciation of their efforts, encouragement and strengthening of their role in conveying their ideas and expression through the arts.

With participation from Designers and artists that participated in the Designing poster for Jerusalem Festival 2023 “stand up Jerusalem”:

Haneen salah, Dania Omari, Rabie Jaradat, Rand Hamadallah, Ghayed Khateb, Layan Rjoub, Mohamed Bishara, Mohamed sharab, Nazemah AlAsmar, Noura Naser, Haya Kabneeh.