Wafa Hourani
Wafa Hourani (born in Hebron in 1979) studied experimental cinema in Tunisia. He works with a variety of media that include film, photography, installation, sculpture, performance, music, and poetry. He lives and works between Ramallah and Amman.
Hourani made several videos in his home city of Ramallah (Yousef,11 Sep Jenin, Curfew and Poster). His Future Cities series project Qalandia 2047 – 2067 – 2087 was exhibited at the Thessaloniki Biennale (2007), Sfeir Semler Gallery, Beirut (2008), Saatchi Gallery, London, the Istanbul Biennale, and Disorientation 2 in AbuDhabi (2009), Haus der Kunst, Munich, and The Silk Road, Lille (2010), as well as The New Museum, New York (2014).
Qalandia has also been published in the following books: Art of the Middle East, The Future of the Tradition, Space and Desire, The State of Newtopia – Human Rights, Here and Elsewhere, and The Restless Earth.
In 2007, he was selected to participate as an artist-in-residence at the Delfina Foundation, London. In 2009, he was invited as a speaker in Florence Art Academy and Zurich University of Art as a speaker in the symposium Space and Desire. His first solo show Newton’s Fourth Law was exhibited Al-Mamal for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem. In 2012, he presented his works at the Voicing Resistance festival – Ballhaus, Berlin, The Arrival and Departure, Ancona, Italy. Newtopia, Mechelen. Qalandiya International, Jerusalem. Encounter, Doha, and the European Capital of Culture program, Guimaraes.
Hourani exhibited at the White Box, New York, and at the Weatherspoon Museum, North Carolina in 2014. He was invited to lead the project Orientamenti and to speak in the symposium, and the Sienna Art Institute promoted both events. In 2016, he presented The Future of Disappearance a solo exhibition at Gallery One and Al Sakakini culture center featuring fourteen artworks with an interactive performance “ The Cemetery of Things” And a solo show for Qalandia 2087 at the Stadthaus Ulm, and an interactive performance “ Palmystery “ at Griesbadgalerie Ulm and at Qalandiya International, Gaza Reconstruction at Bierziet University Museum -Ramallah
He was part of the exhibition The restless earth at the Triennale di Milano, Milan; Maktoob at Al Hoosh Foundation, Jerusalem; Sensorial Immunity at Gallery One and Al Sakakini culture center – Ramallah; In Women on Revolution at Gallery One. In 2018, he exhibited at Bierziet University Museum and at Contemporary Art Platform – Kuwait, in 2020 he participated in ‘Popular Culture and the City’ in Abu Dhabi.
2021 he collaborated with ICRC and created a model (Blackout) that focuses on the humanitarian and living conditions in the Gaza Strip with the implications of the electricity crisis.
Hourani’s work has been collected in many places such as; The Archaeological Museum, Thessaloniki; Saatchi Gallery, London; ADACH, Abu Dhabi; Nadour collection, Germany; Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait; Mouhamad Abu Gazalah, Amman; Qattan Foundation, Ramallah and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.