Gaza Biennale New York Pavilion

Full exhibition:
September 10–14, 2025

Drop-in Hours - No RSVP needed
Wednesday–Sunday, 12-5pm

Abbreviated exhibition:
September 18–December 20, 2025

Drop-in Hours - No RSVP needed
Thursdays-Saturdays, 12-5 pm

Gaza Biennale New York Pavilion: From Gaza to the World

Recess is honored to be the first North American site hosting the Gaza Biennale, a global exhibition shaped by Palestinian artists who have been creating throughout the genocidal siege in Gaza. Even in this time of catastrophic loss these artists have persisted in their artistic practice.

Spanning five days—September 10–14, 2025–and then again in abbreviation for three months–September 18–December 20, 2025–the New York Pavilion of this artist-initiated Biennale brings together a vast grouping of artworks that speak across borders and conditions of constraint.

“This is not a cultural event.

It is the cry of a soul that survived.

And a final call… before the coffins close on all that remains.

From Gaza to the world:

We do not die in silence...

We resist with our voice, with color, with words, and with every heartbeat we still have left.”

– Fatema Abu Owda

In April 2024, artists from Gaza working during a genocide began to gather under a single project founded in Palestine and realized in pavilions worldwide. Developed over the last seventeen months, with the Forbidden Museum of Jabal Al Risan, Palestine, the Gaza Biennale presents over 50 artists and their respective exhibitions. Today, most of the artists remain steadfast in Gaza, while some have been displaced outside.

Unable to host within Palestine, the Gaza Biennale itself reflects a condition of displacement, dispersed in seventeen pavilions–or jinnahs, meaning branches or wings–across the world. At the same time, the project remains committed to the artists’ original vision: to present their individual exhibitions in Palestine, in improvised tents, shelters, rubble, and under fire.

The Gaza Biennale moves away from traditional exhibition frameworks. Each pavilion is displaced from Gaza and each artwork exists, not as reproductions but in a displaced form, ex situ. The Biennale declares that when art seeks liberation, it shatters worldviews, reorders geography, and grants artists the autonomy to declare their humanity on a global stage.

The first show in North America, the New York Pavilion: From Gaza to the World presented in partnership with Recess, was envisioned as a synecdoche for the Biennale as a whole–a hub, a network, on view until December 20th. From September 10-14th, the exhibition offers an in depth glimpse into the projects of 25 artists, reflecting 25 unique experiences. Using leftover ashes of burned homes, Ahmed Adnan Alassar made his epic panorama. Observing the daily struggles of those around him, Mohamed Moghari paints today’s legends. Spirits born from the unspeakable are somehow captured by Malaka Abu Owda. Taking refuge in a garage, Osama Husein Al Naqqa created elaborate sketches with his finger on his phone. Maysaa Yousef created a wonderland from the rubble of her home, making new works and running workshops with children.

Thank you to all the artists, curators, coordinators, and everyone who believes the human is free, that art is free, and that meeting is possible even in the darkest of nights. Thank you to Gaza, for teaching us how art is born in the eye of the storm.