Rehab Nazzal
Rehab Nazzal is a Palestinian-born multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto, Canada. Her work deals with the effect of settler colonial violence on the bodies and minds of colonized peoples and on the land and other non-human life. Nazzal’s video, photography, and sound works have been exhibited across Canada and internationally in both solo and group exhibitions including at Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto; CONTACT Photography Festival, Toronto; Karsh-Masson Galley, Ottawa; The Spanish Institute of Art; Encounters Film Festival, UK; The 22nd Sydney Biennale, Australia; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Foresight Gallery, Amman, Jordan; and Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Ramallah, Palestine. She was a resident at the 29e Symposium international d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul and AXENEO7 Gallery in Quebec.
Nazzal holds a PhD in Art and Visual Culture from Western University (London, Ontario), an MFA from Ryerson University (Toronto), and a BFA from the University of Ottawa. She is the recipient of several awards including the Social Justice Award from Ryerson University and the Edmund and Isobel Ryan Visual Arts Award in Photography from the University of Ottawa. She received a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada doctoral award and has held multiple grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Art Council.
Nazzal holds a PhD in Art and Visual Culture from Western University (London, Ontario), an MFA from Ryerson University (Toronto), and a BFA from the University of Ottawa. She is the recipient of several awards including the Social Justice Award from Ryerson University and the Edmund and Isobel Ryan Visual Arts Award in Photography from the University of Ottawa. She received a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada doctoral award and has held multiple grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Art Council.
"My practice focuses on the effect of settler colonial violence on peoples, on land, and on other non-human life in colonized territories. In my multimedia work, I use video, photography, sound, and installation to create works that examine the image in relation to sound and the enduring human bodies as sites of oppression and sites of resistance. In my research-based processes, I employ various visual and sonic strategies that range between experimental, conceptual, and documentary.
Some of my major projects and short films, exhibited in Canada and internationally, include: the photography-sound installation Walking Under Occupation (2006- ), the photography-video exhibition Divide (2010), the multichannel video installation At Home (2012), and the multimedia installations Invisible (2014) and Choreographies of Resistance (2018), the second of which includes a photography book.
In addition to my teaching and practice, I have developed various critical community initiatives such as facilitating an art program for new immigrants in Ottawa (in conjunction with community and arts organizations including Library and Archives Canada and the Ottawa School Board). In another community project, I involved local communities in in-gallery projects in Toronto, London, ON, and Ottawa by inviting individuals from diverse backgrounds to create a collective artwork.
In-progress projects include Driving in Palestine, a photography-text book (Fernwood Publishing, 2023) and instalation to be be exhibited at Montréal, arts interculturels (MAI) in 2023. The second project, Sensing War- Vibrations, a short film about Deaf persons in the besieged Palestinian province of Gaza. The third project is a sound-animation project titled Sonic Torture, which focuses on the use of sound and music in torture of political prisoners.
As a practicing artist, activist, and educator, I consider critical thinking, engagement with the community and with nature to be central to the creative processes." (Rehab Nazzal)
Some of my major projects and short films, exhibited in Canada and internationally, include: the photography-sound installation Walking Under Occupation (2006- ), the photography-video exhibition Divide (2010), the multichannel video installation At Home (2012), and the multimedia installations Invisible (2014) and Choreographies of Resistance (2018), the second of which includes a photography book.
In addition to my teaching and practice, I have developed various critical community initiatives such as facilitating an art program for new immigrants in Ottawa (in conjunction with community and arts organizations including Library and Archives Canada and the Ottawa School Board). In another community project, I involved local communities in in-gallery projects in Toronto, London, ON, and Ottawa by inviting individuals from diverse backgrounds to create a collective artwork.
In-progress projects include Driving in Palestine, a photography-text book (Fernwood Publishing, 2023) and instalation to be be exhibited at Montréal, arts interculturels (MAI) in 2023. The second project, Sensing War- Vibrations, a short film about Deaf persons in the besieged Palestinian province of Gaza. The third project is a sound-animation project titled Sonic Torture, which focuses on the use of sound and music in torture of political prisoners.
As a practicing artist, activist, and educator, I consider critical thinking, engagement with the community and with nature to be central to the creative processes." (Rehab Nazzal)
A Dead Sea Series
Juxtaposed in two opposing panels, these images capture the Dead Sea,(the lowest land on earth) from both sides, the Palestinian and the Jordanian. While the water is visible in the Jordanian side, it is invisible in the Palestinian side as Palestinians are prohibited by the Israeli occupation authorities to access their water sources. While visiting my home country in 2008 and 2010, the military occupation forces prevented me from accessing the site of the Dead Sea. I turned my lens to what was visible; the mountains and hills dotted with military structures and weapons installations. To be able to see the water, I crossed the borders to Jordan and captured the Sea from there.
The work intends to shed light on a common feature of settler colonial regimes, that is the attempts to control indigenous land and water and rupture the human relations to nature.