Yazan KHALILI (Palestine, 1981).
Lives and works in and out of Palestine.
Yazan Khalili received a degree in architecture from Birzeit University in 2003 and in 2010 received his MA degree from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmith's College, University of London, and in 2015 his MFA degree at Sandberg Institute, Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. He was one of the founding members of Zan Design Studio (2005-2010). He was a finalist in the A. M. Qattan Foundation’s Young Artists Award (YAYA 2006). He was the production coordinator for Sharjah Biennials 9 & 10, and the technical director of the inaugural exhibition of the Palestinian Museum “Jerusalem Lives”. He curated (YAYA 2012), The City | The Image symposium with Goethe Institute, Ramallah 2012, The Long Journey exhibition, working with the UNRWA Audio-Visual archive for Palestine refugees, in 2013, and in 2015 he co-organized Walter Benjamin in Palestine workshop and symposium. He is the winner of Extract V young artist prize 2015. Currently he is a visiting lecturer at the media department at Al-Quds Bard college, and since September 2015 Yazan has been the artistic director of Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre.
His photographic work often explores the built environment and its relationship to its social context. His writings and photographs have been featured in several publications, including among others Assuming Boycotts, WDW Magazine, Kalamon, Manifesta Journal, Frieze Magazine, Race & Class, C-Print, Ibraaz, Contemporary Art: World Currents, and Subjective atlas of Palestine. In 2009, alongside Lara Khaldi, Khalili co-curated We Were Never Heroes as part of the Jerusalem Show, and the film and video programs; Cinema of Independence 2009 and In The Name of the Father 2011 at the Arab Shorts Festival presented by the Goethe Institute, in Cairo.
His works has been exhibited in several major exhibitions across Europe and the Middle East, including among others: Solo shows include: 2018 No one Saw the Colors, Kunstforeningen, GL Strand, Copenhagen; 2017 On the Other Side of the Law, Lawrie Shabibi Gallery, Dubai; 2015 On Love and Other Landscapes. Mumbai Art Room, India; 2015 The Aliens. Transit gallery, Belgium; 2014 Regarding Distance. Edge of Arabia Projects, London; 2013 On Love and Other Landscapes w/Basma Alsharif. Imane Fares Gallery, Paris; 2011 Landscape of Darkness. Transit Gallery, Belgium; 2008 Margins. Delfina Foundation, London; 2007 Urban Impression at French Cultural Centers in Palestine. Group shows and performances : Hiding Our Faces Like a Dancing Wind, Being: New Photography, MoMA, New York, 2018; Jerusalem Lives, Palestinian Museum, 2017, Post-Peace, Kunstverein Stuttgart 2017; Robbery in Area A & Scouting for Locations, hanghai Biennial 2016; Landscape of Darkness, Biennial Of Photography In The Contemporary Arab World, the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 2015; Love Letter to Mars, w/Lara Khaldi, OCA, Oslo and Al-Mawred Al-Thaqafi, Cairo, 2014; Scouting for Locations: Traces of a Scream. Re-emerge, Sharjah Biennial 11, 2013.
Residencies: Tabakalera, International Centre for Contemporary Culture, San Sabastian, 2017; Arsenale, The Living Archive, w/Lara Khaldi, Berlin, 2014; Danish Film School, Copenhagen, 2006.
