As part of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art’s 15th anniversary, the exhibition we refuse_d gathers fifteen artists whose works confront the politics of silencing, displacement, and endurance. Curated by Nadia Radwan and Vasif Kortun, the exhibition unfolds as both a statement and a collective gesture — a space where resilience becomes a form of resistance.
Drawing its title and spirit from the 19th-century Salon des Refusés, we refuse_d reimagines refusal not as negation but as creative force. The exhibition proposes refusal as an act of care, a strategy of survival, and a means of reimagining the world under pressure. At a moment when global systems of power are increasingly marked by censorship and control, these artists insist on the presence of art — on making, thinking, and remembering as radical gestures.
Most of the works are newly commissioned and emerge from ongoing conversations between artists and curators. The exhibition spans a wide geography and a multiplicity of languages, bringing together practices that negotiate the intersections of history, heritage, and politics. Through installation, film, drawing, and performance, the artists explore the fragile yet generative balance between endurance and action.
Featuring works by Taysir Batniji, DAAR (Sandi Hilal & Alessandro Petti), Barış Doğrusöz, Samia Halaby, Majd Abdel Hamid, Emily Jacir, Jumana Manna, Walid Raad, Khalil Rabah, Yasmine Eid Sabbagh, Nour Shantout, Suha Shoman, Dima Srouji, Oraib Toukan, and Abdul Hay Mosallam Zarara, we refuse_d creates a shared terrain where art becomes both witness and participant.
Ultimately, we refuse_d is not merely about resistance — it is about persistence: the insistence on continuing to make art, to speak, and to imagine, even when conditions demand silence. In this sense, the exhibition becomes a living archive of endurance — a reminder that to refuse is also to affirm the possibility of life.
