Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme are presenting work across two major international biennials this season.
At the 25th Biennale of Sydney: REMEMORY, curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, the artists present May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth: only sounds that tremble through us (2020–2022), a multi-channel video and sound installation. The Biennale's theme — drawn from Toni Morrison's concept of rememory — explores how fragmented and suppressed histories are revisited, reconstructed, and reclaimed. Abbas and Abou-Rahme's practice in sound, image, and installation, long attuned to the politics of erasure and collective memory, finds its most resonant context here.
Concurrently, the artists participate in the Whitney Biennial 2026 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, presenting Until we became fire and fire us (2023–ongoing), weaves traditional Palestinian songs with contemporary footage of indigenous plants resisting eradication, interlaced with drawings made by Abou-Rahme's father in Jerusalem in the 1970s and 80s, expressing collective feelings of love and longing in the wake of the erasure of land and communities in Palestine.
At the 25th Biennale of Sydney: REMEMORY, curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, the artists present May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth: only sounds that tremble through us (2020–2022), a multi-channel video and sound installation. The Biennale's theme — drawn from Toni Morrison's concept of rememory — explores how fragmented and suppressed histories are revisited, reconstructed, and reclaimed. Abbas and Abou-Rahme's practice in sound, image, and installation, long attuned to the politics of erasure and collective memory, finds its most resonant context here.
Concurrently, the artists participate in the Whitney Biennial 2026 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, presenting Until we became fire and fire us (2023–ongoing), weaves traditional Palestinian songs with contemporary footage of indigenous plants resisting eradication, interlaced with drawings made by Abou-Rahme's father in Jerusalem in the 1970s and 80s, expressing collective feelings of love and longing in the wake of the erasure of land and communities in Palestine.
March 18, 2026