Queer Arab Artists on Their Own Terms

""The show is about giving the pen back to the writer, giving the paintbrush back to the artist, during this time of genocide," the Ridikkuluz told Hyperallergic in an interview at the gallery. "And when there's been so much censorship, these are artists that might not have been able to do this anywhere else.""

"'Regarding the work that I'm showing, people are always asking me, 'Is your family okay with you being trans?' And I really hate that question in a way,' said Elias Jesús Rischmawi, a multimedia artist of Palestinian descent. 'I show that I'm so connected with my family through my work. Even if we might be distant, or if we have our differences, I'm still celebrated in my community. And it's like a 'fuck you' to that.'"

""Upon entering Participant Inc. gallery in Manhattan's Chinatown, a pitch-black embrace invites us find one another in the dark. As our eyesight adjusts, a constellation of works illuminates, a group exhibition open through March 15 featuring queer artists of the Palestinian, Jordanian, Lebanese, Syrian, and Egyptian diasporas. Wafts of burning incense mingle with the instrumentals of a commissioned sound mix by Palestinian musician Falyakon to direct visitors through the show, which Palestinian-Jordanian-Egyptian artist Ridikkuluz curated as a space for anti-colonial futurism across tradition and geography.""

Participant Inc. presents a dimly lit exhibition that invites visitors to adjust their sight and encounter works with incense and a commissioned instrumental sound mix by Palestinian musician Falyakon. The exhibition centers queer artists from Palestinian, Jordanian, Lebanese, Syrian, and Egyptian diasporas and foregrounds anti-colonial futurism across traditions and geographies. The curatorial intent restores creative agency amid censorship and genocide, supporting work that might not appear elsewhere. The exhibition resists reducing identity markers to justification for violence and emphasizes connection, belonging, reclaimed lineages, and celebratory relations within diasporic communities rather than dwelling on collective trauma.

Read at Hyperallergic