Khaled Sabsabi, an artist with roots in the Lebanese civil war, will showcase his work at the 2026 Venice Biennale. His experiences growing up in western Sydney, coupled with a family history intertwined with the Palestinian plight, influence his artistic vision. At the announcement by Creative Australia CEO Adrian Collette, Sabsabi emphasized the significance of his family's Arabic music shop in shaping his identity. While details of his Venice project remain undisclosed, he envisions it as a nurturing space that brings people together, likely incorporating multimedia elements and fostering introspection on shared human experiences.
The video shop and music business that they had specialised in Arabic music, and they had an extensive collection and this formed partly my experience of who I am.
We have tough skin, but you do get bruised. How can you not be affected when you have family, when you have friends, when your family has inter-married with Palestinian people? We need a way forward.
It’s a place to bring people together. I like to use the word 'nurturing'. Looking at my art-making DNA you can see that it will most probably consist of multimedia.
At that time we really believed that hip-hop subculture was an opportunity to work outside and view the world through an alternative lens where it didn't matter what race you were.
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