UXIL programme «University in exile»: masterclass by Mohammed Abusal «Force cannot defeat imagination - Alternative museology in Gaza».»

Monday 26 January 2026 | From 2pm | Auditorium François Héritier, Humathèque (10 cours des Humanités, 93300 Aubervilliers)

Force cannot defeat immigration - Alternative museology in Gaza

As part of the UXIL (Universities in Exile) programme, Mohammed Abusal, a visual artist from Gaza (PAUSE Mucem/Iremam programme), will present two masterclasses on the theme: «Alternative Heritage and Museology in Gaza: the Use of Alternative Cartography».

© The cloud museum, Collectif Hawaf (drawing by Mohamed ABUSAL), 2021

This masterclass is open to students (Masters, doctoral students) and researchers from all disciplines, from the arts and humanities to the social sciences.

Register here.

Taking a research-creation approach, the masterclass will explore artistic initiatives that use anticipation and projection into the future to bypass borders and create new deterritorialised spaces. It will include a presentation on the destruction of Gaza's cultural heritage, as well as alternative ways of constructing a fragile and threatened heritage proposed by Palestinian artists and cultural actors. The masterclass will look at different forms of artistic writing that use fictional detours (documentary fiction, speculative narratives, science fiction), confronting territorial or identity assignments with the critical power of unrealized or alternative realities. In the second part, it will study museological devices that play with distortions of time and space (utopia, dystopia) in order to invert the notions of heritage and memory on which museums are based and subvert their stereotypes. The aim of the masterclass is to introduce participants to these alternative modes of writing and to collectively imagine solutions by experimenting with drawings and sketches. Participants are invited to bring paper and pens to take part in the workshop in the second part.

Organized by Mohammed Abusal (Mucem/IREMAM) and Adélie Chevée (Sciences Po Paris/Mesopolhis)

Contact: adelie.chevee[at]sciencespo.fr

Born in 1976 in Gaza, Mohamed Abusal is one of Palestine's most renowned visual artists, with exhibitions around the world. Since 2000, his work has shed light on the everyday realities of Palestinians while offering alternative and optimistic visions of a better future. In 2002, he co-founded the artist collective Eltiqa, which was featured at Documenta in Kassel in 2022. In 2005, he received the prestigious Charles Aspry Prize for Contemporary Art. A former resident at both the Cité des Arts in Paris and the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, his work was included in the exhibition «Ce que la Palestine apporte au monde” at the Institut du Monde Arabe in 2023. In 2021, he co-founded the Hawaf collective, which is developing a virtual museum for Gaza, the Sahab Museum (musée des nuages). This museum was exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo and in Art Explora in 2024. Mohamed Abusal is currently an artist-researcher supported by the PAUSE Program at the Mucem and Aix-Marseille University (IREMAM). 

For more information, click here.