SAF explores displacement and cultural survival in Palestine

December 09, 2025 / 2:20 PM

Sharjah 24: Sharjah Art Foundation presents I Once Had a Day, an exhibition bringing together works by seven artists who have devoted their practice to staying close to the lived realities of Palestine. Drawn from the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection, these works speak to histories of displacement and loss as well as to enduring acts of care, remembrance and cultural survival.

On view until 14 December 2025 in the gallery of Al-Razi Auditorium, Medical Campus at University of Sharjah, the exhibition features artworks by Samia Halaby, Hazem Harb, Mona Hatoum, Khalil Rabah, Mona Saudi, Abdul Hay Mossallam Zarara and Kamal Youssef.

I Once Had a Day unfolds as a conversation across generations, invoking the land not as a geographic entity, but as a witness. Spanning multiple decades and mediums, these practices emerge from and reflect on the conditions of diaspora, speaking from within occupied time.

The exhibition’s title borrows a line from Mahmoud Darwish’s poem This Is Her Image, and This Is the Lover’s Suicide, which appears within Mona Saudi’s work. In this context, ‘I once had a day’ reads as the voice of one who has withstood a loss yet carries it forward and returns to it again and again.

Presented in conjunction with the inaugural Sharjah Human Development Forum, titled Humanity & Heritage in Palestine, I Once Had a Day is organised by Sharjah Art Foundation, NAMA Women Advancement Establishment and The Big Heart Foundation, in collaboration with the University of Sharjah.

The exhibition is curated by Reem Sawan, Curatorial Assistant at Sharjah Art Foundation