Gaza Biennale: The Istanbul Pavilion
Dialogue is at the heart of 'A Cloud in My Hand,' the Istanbul iteration of a global showcase of Palestinian artists that runs through 8 November.
Displaced in Gaza by the last two years of Israeli bombardments, artist Fares Ayash would often walk up to four kilometers each day to find supplies to make his art, risking his life to scavenge for bits of useful material in destroyed buildings. Eventually he cobbled together enough scraps to create a humble sculptural form: the legs of a ballerina, weighed down by a block of cement but still rising defiantly en pointe in a pair of the plastic clogs handed out by aid organizations that have become ubiquitous as many Gazans’ only remaining footwear.
Like many of the other Palestinian artists participating in the 2025 Gaza Biennale, Ayash was unable to send his work off to be shown in this global exhibition made up of temporary “pavilions” in different cities. Even getting pictures of his sculpture out of the beleaguered strip proved challenging.
“Nothing leaves Gaza other than words, this smuggled communication through WhatsApp,” says A.S. Bruckstein Çoruh, the founder and artistic director of the House of Taswir initiative, which curated the biennale’s Istanbul Pavilion at the cultural center DEPO. Due to poor internet connectivity, Ayash could only send the dozens of necessary high-res images a few at a time.
In Istanbul, Ayash’s sculpture, titled “Dorgham (The Lion),” is presented in grey marble, hand-carved locally as part of a collective, collaborative approach that transcends individual signatures. “We are taking diasporic ideas and creating new works and affinities around them, with different dimensions and materials,” says Çoruh. “Every work is a time capsule of the relationship.”
The Gaza Biennale – The Istanbul Pavilion: A Cloud in My Hand is spread over two floors of DEPO, a former tobacco warehouse in Istanbul’s Tophane district. It features a combination of new works similarly co-created with artists in Gaza and works by artists in the Palestinian diaspora – including Hala Eid Alnaji’s “Nazeh’s Lexicon: The Language of Displacement,” a memory-laden textile map of Gaza made with other Palestinian refugees in Egypt – alongside older works donated to the exhibition by international artists such as Alfredo Jaar and Shirin Neshat. Most original works are for sale, with proceeds going directly to the artists or to the project, as are dozens of posters and framed reproductions.
Operating under the umbrella of Anadolu Kültür, a nonprofit cultural organization co-founded by jailed philanthropist Osman Kavala, DEPO is known for bravely staging exhibitions and events that address contested political and social issues. But unlike in the United States or Germany, where artists have faced censorship and pressure for speaking out on the destruction of Gaza, the plight of the Palestinian people is not a taboo topic in Turkey.
Istanbul Biennial curator Christine Tohmé called for an end to the genocide in her opening remarks at that ongoing event, which features multiple works by Palestinian artists, including Sohail Salem’s raw pen-and-ink sketches “Diaries from Gaza.” And at the Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, the long-running Palestine from Above exhibition delves into the historical roots of the present-day situation, examining two centuries’ worth of colonial, ideological impositions on the land and its people.
What sets A Cloud in My Hand apart is the way it tries to to create a sense of dialogue between the viewers and Palestinian artists, starting with the inclusion of these artists in the opening night via a Zoom link and continuing with a rich public program of free talks, films, workshops, music, poetry readings, and other events. On the first floor of the exhibition, two laptops on desks type out messages from the artists while spaces set up like a traditional Palestinian living room and a tent for displaced people invite quiet contemplation and further reading on the issues.
Upstairs, the heart of the exhibition is Palestinian filmmaker Khaled Tanji’s installation “Re-Connecting,” featuring videos of his WhatsApp conversations with two dozen participating artists, mounted on black pillars with old-fashioned landline telephone handsets that visitors can pick up to listen in. “People feel many different feelings when listening to these stories from Gaza; there are things that make people laugh even in the midst of the pain and anger,” Tanji says, comparing the phones to those that might be used to speak to prisoners on the other side of a glass wall in a visiting room.
“The Palestinian artists can’t travel with their works,” he says, “but they deserve to be here in this exhibition.”
Gaza Biennale – The Istanbul Pavilion: A Cloud in My Hand runs through 8 November at DEPO (Lüleci Hendek Caddesi No:12, Tophane, Beyoğlu; open Tue-Sat 11am-7pm). The remaining public program includes an evening of poetry readings and musical performances in tribute to Mahmoud Darwish (5 November at 7pm); a lecture by Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 (7 November at 6:30pm); and a closing discussion on 8 November at noon.
Further reading on Palestinian artists:
Voices From Gaza – The world-renowned agency Magnum Photos presents the work of three photographers from Gaza along with personal dialogues between three of the photographers and Magnum members, and poetry from the fourth, written before she was killed by an Israeli airstrike in April 2025.
A Defiant Gaza Biennale Opens in New York City – Writer Diba Mohtasham visits the global show’s first North American stop, which brings together works by 25 Palestinian artists.
In the West Bank, Some Artists Are Choosing to Stay – A grassroots organization in Bethlehem is helping Palestinian artists stay and create despite huge hurdles.
Thank you for this information. I will go to Depo tomorrow!