SAHAB MUSEUM: How to build a museum in Gaza

As part of CALL IT MUSEUM, Hawaf collective will present their project Sahab Museum. Hawaf collective is a multidisciplinary collective founded by Gazan and French artists, architects, developers and thinkers that has gathered remotely and physically since 2021 around the idea of (re)building a community in order to build a museum in Gaza – the Sahab Imaginary Museum. Hawaf sees imagination in common as a tool for creation and emancipation, giving visibility to Gazan artists and breaking out of isolation. Sahab Museum is a way of preserving the past, rethinking the present and looking to the future. Sahab Museum is a series of virtual spaces and platforms dedicated to the exploration of ideas and art. It is shaped around virtual reality technologies to allow all visitors from Palestine and the entire world to walk through it, from wherever they are based.

Hawaf is composed of 4 founding members, 1 architect and 3 artists: Gaza-based visual artist Mohamed Abusal, Gennevilliers-based visual artist Mohamed Bourouissa, Gaza-based architect Sondos El-Nakhala and Sweden-based visual artist Salman Nawati. The collective started working remotely through virtual Zoom encounters during the year 2021, and was able to reunite for the first time in real life during a common residency at Cité des Arts in Paris, organized with Art Explora and Ateliers Médicis. New members have joined Hawaf in 2022: artist Andres Burbano, based in Paris and researcher Marion Slitine, based in Marseille. Hawaf is structured as a non-profit association under the French law of 1901.