Manifesto
Sahab Imaginary Museum
Gaza, which occupies an important geographical position, connects by land three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe). The city is one of the oldest and most ancient cities in the world; it embraces treasures that go back to the ancient roots of the Arab Canaanite eras and civilizations, where many are hidden. The city is living in a state of isolation and exceptional circumstances that did not allow these legacies to be revealed. Gaza needs to excavate, research, and document this history. And for that, it needs a safe place to present its cultural wealth to the world and break out of isolation.
How to process the past, do something in the now and imagine another future? Especially, in the case of Gaza’s past, present and future. In order to do this, we need to craft ourselves a secure space. A space to rethink and imagine. A space to allow for our dreams to take shape despite the weight of Gaza’s violent everyday life.
Can our imagination become a powerful tool in the face of that reality?
How can you imagine a museum in Gaza, without it being about power?
Named Sahab Museum as an "imaginary institution" it will reflect a new image of Gaza's heritage and history. The Sahab Museum will be a virtual space for the exploration of ideas and art. It will be shaped around virtual reality technologies to allow all visitors from Palestine and the entire world to walk through it, from wherever they are based. A Museum without borders. Even if virtual, the form of the museum was designed by taking inspiration from Gaza’s old town: by the style and architecture of buildings and houses in that region. As such, for example, a courtyard will occupy the center. Each detail reflects a value period of Gaza. From this architectural inspiration, came the concept and the form of sedimentation.
Free from walls, the Sahab Imaginary Museum is liberated. This freedom will enable it to display a large collection. Even if focused on history, the Sahab Museum will also spotlight contemporary creations and especially advocate for the creation of digital artworks, offline and online workshops, and material works.
Sahab can be translated as “cloud”. We thought that “the cloud” would be the most appropriate place for the location of the museum. Indeed, “clouds” are a gateway to the outside world. Reappropriating the term cloud in the Arabic language is meaningful for us; it is a way to give it back its plurality.
Our main concept is to rebuild the community through building the museum. To this end, the community will help us to build the Sahab Museum. It is by building a community and shaping the identity of the museum, that Sahab can be created. The more expansive the community, the broader and more inclusive the museum will be. We would like to enhance the museum’s potential of being an educational space, by connecting to the community.
"Hawaf" (which means “edges”) collective was established in 2021, as the project of the Museum was born out of a collective idea and composite dreamers. The group is committed to pursuing the project as far as possible and developing its possibilities in the long-term, and through several steps. In the future, Sahab Imaginary Museum could potentially lead to the creation of an in-real-life institution in Gaza.
Sahab Imaginary Museum will be a space that will champion Gaza’s past and will protect it from loss and focus on imagining a brighter future through the practice of imagination.
Hawaf Collective
Team
Mohamed AbusalMohamed Abusal was born in 1976 in Gaza.
His work as a visual artist is to highlight the reality of the daily life of Palestinians, while offering alternative and optimistic visions of a better future. Although a graduate in finance and management, he retrained as an artist in 2000 and attended many workshops and has undertaken much research to develop and refine his artistic skills. Since 2000, he has worked at a prolific rate producing daring and innovative work which has attracted great publicity and garnered much critical acclaim. Projects have included Metro in Gaza (2012) and Shambar (2013) –concepts comprising installations, designs and photographs– that deal with the reality in besieged Gaza and envisioning a brighter future –a future that is not only plausible but a fundamental human right.
In 2002, he participated in the creation of the artist collective Eltiqa, which was presented at the Documenta in Kassel in 2022. In 2005, he received the prestigious Charles Aspry Prize for Contemporary Art. He has a long experience of collaboration with the French art community. A former laureate of the Cité des Arts in Paris and the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, he exhibited at the Institut du Monde Arabe in the exhibition "What Palestine brings to the world" in 2023. In 2021, he co-founded the Hawaf collective, which is developing a virtual museum for Gaza, the Sahab Museum. Mohamed Abusal is an Artist Protection Fund Fellow in residence at IREMAM - AMU & MUCEM. He is the laureate of the Program PAUSE - France.
Mohamed BourouissaBorn in 1978 in Blida, Algeria, Mohamed Bourouissa lives and works in Gennevilliers.
Preceded by a lengthy period of immersion, each of Mohamed Bourouissa’s projects constructs a new context for expression. With a critical eye toward the often stereotypical narratives of the media, the artist reintroduces complexity into the representation of contemporary society. The subjects of his photographs, sculptures, and videos are often people left “on the margins,” at the crossroads of integration and exclusion.
His work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, notably at the Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy (2025); at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2024); LaM - Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary, and Outsider Art, Lille, France (2023); Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London, United Kingdom (2021); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark (2021); ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, Italy (2020); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany (2020); Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France (2019); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France (2018); Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2018); Musée National Eugène Delacroix, Paris, France (2017); Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, United States (2017); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2016); Savannah College of Arts and Design, Atlanta, United States (2011); Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, United States (2011), among others.
His work is represented in major public collections around the world, including the MoMA—Museum of Modern Art, New York, United States; the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; the Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland; the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France; the Fonds National d’art contemporain, Paris, France; FRAC Bretagne, Rennes, France; FRAC Franche-Comté, Besançon, France; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, United States; the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, United States; the Pinault Collection, Paris, France; the Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf, Germany; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; and the Weng Collection, Krefeld, Germany, among others.
Salman NawatiSalman Nawati is a visual artist who has been a visual arts teacher and director of arts programs for over a decade. His artistic exploration was fueled by a transformative experience during his residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris while founding the Sahab Museum with the Hawaf collective. He is also one of the founders of the Dahaleez collective.
In his career, Salman has been a dynamic force in the cultural landscape, serving as artistic director of several festivals and sharing his experience as a teacher at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Al-Aqsa University. His multifaceted artistic practice spans multiple mediums, including painting, photography, film, theatre, and music. Salman’s work deeply reflects the complexity of conflict, whether it is an individual’s internal struggle or the broader social and environmental challenges facing the world. His art is an effective medium for exploring concepts of identity, resilience, and the human condition.
In addition to his projects, he has several solo exhibitions. Salman has made significant participation in group exhibitions at many prestigious venues, including the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Arab World Institute in Paris, the Mosaic Rooms in London, Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Aix-en-Provence, the Sharjah Architecture Triennial in Dubai, the A.M. Qattan Foundation in Ramallah, and the French Cultural Centers in Gaza, Ramallah, and Jerusalem, among others.
Marion SlitineMarion Slitine is an anthropologist, a research fellow at the CNRS (Norbert Elias Centre), a lecturer at the Marseille School of Fine Arts, and founder of the Maan For Gaza Artists collective, which hosts Palestinian artists in residence in France. She completed a PhD at EHESS on contemporary art in Palestine, which won the Musée du quai Branly Thesis Prize and received special mentions from GIS MOM/IISMM. Her research focuses on the visual arts of Palestine, in relation to issues of engagement, the public sphere and concrete utopias; as well as on the challenges of reconstruction and preservation of artistic heritage within the context of cultural destruction in Gaza. Since 2022, she has been a member of the ‘Hawaf’ collective of artists and researchers, which developed the Sahab Project. She co-curated the exhibition ‘What Palestine Brings to the World’ at the Arab World Institute (2023).
Andres BurbanoAndres Burbano works on the decolonization of art and technology, with misrepresented communities shifting from spectators to creators. As an artist, he uses immersive technologies as a tool to produce cultural and social projects, as part of a transdisciplinary and collaborative practice. As a technical expert, he has experience in the development of scalable applications integrating artificial intelligence and image processing. As a researcher, he studies the impact of immersive technologies on the creative process.
https://canvar.art/abl
Sondos Al-NakhalaSondos Al-Nakhala is an architect from Gaza based in Doha, Qatar.
Passionate about cultural heritage and urban planning with a strong background in photogrammetry and technical documentation, she is dedicated to preserving history through modern technology.
With roots in Gaza, she is driven by a deep commitment to ensuring that cultural artifacts and historical sites are documented and safegarded for future generations. Her expertise bridges the gap between traditional cultural heritage practices and cutting-edge digital tools, making her work both innovative and impactful.
