Emily Jacir, Co-founder and Founding Director of Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research
Emily is an artist whose work—which spans a range of strategies including film, photography, sculpture, interventions, archiving, performance, video, writing, and sound—investigates histories of colonization, exchange, questions of translation, transformation, resistance, and movement.
She is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including a Golden Lion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund in The Hague (2007); the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum (2008); the Alpert Award (2011) from the Herb Alpert Foundation; and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (2015).
Her recent solo exhibitions include Alexander and Bonin, New York (2018); IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art), Dublin (2016–17); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2015); Darat al Funun, Amman (2014–15); Beirut Art Center (2010); and the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2009). Her work has been regularly featured in major international group exhibitions, including at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; dOCUMENTA (13) (2012); five consecutive Venice Biennales; Sharjah Biennial 10 (2011); 29th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2010); 15th Biennale of Sydney (2006); Sharjah Biennial 7 (2005); Whitney Biennial (2004); and 8th Istanbul Biennial (2003).
Emily has been actively involved in education in Palestine since 2000 and is deeply invested in creating alternative spaces of knowledge production. She recently served as curator of the Young Artist of the Year Award 2018 at the A. M. Qattan Foundation in Ramallah which she entitled “We Shall be Monsters”. She is one of the founders of the International Academy of Art Palestine in Ramallah and was a full-time professor there from 2007 to 2017 and served on its academic board from 2006 to 2012. Jacir led the inaugural year (2011–12) of the Ashkal Alwan Home Workspace Program in Beirut and created the curriculum and programming; she also served on its curricular committee from 2010 to 2011. Between 1999 and 2002, she curated several Arab and Palestinian film programs in New York City with Alwan for the Arts while also teaching several workshops at Birzeit University. She conceived of and co-curated the first Palestine International Video Festival in Ramallah in 2002. In 2007, she curated a selection of shorts, “Palestinian Revolution Cinema (1968–1982),” which went on tour internationally.
Annemarie Jacir, Co-founder
Annemarie has written, directed and produced over sixteen films. Two of her films have premiered as Official Selections in Cannes, one in Berlin and in Venice, Locarno, and Telluride. All three of her feature films were Palestine's official Oscar entries.
With a commitment to teaching, training and hiring locally, Annemarie also curates and mentors, actively promoting independent cinema in the region. Founder of Philistine Films, she collaborates regularly with fellow filmmakers as an editor, screenwriter and producer.
In 2003, she co-founded the Dreams of a Nation project and organized the largest traveling film festival in Palestine, which included the screening of archival Palestinian revolutionary films screening for the first time on Palestinian soil. She has taught at Columbia, Bethlehem, Birzeit University and in refugee camps in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan. In 2011, Chinese director Zhang Yimou selected her to be his first protégée as part of the Rolex Arts Initiative. In 2018, she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and also served on the jury of the Cannes Film Festival.
Yusuf Nasri Jacir, Co-founder
Yusuf was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Dar Jacir . He attended primary school at the Freres School in Bethlehem, graduated from Terra Sancta Secondary High School and studied for one year at Bir Zeit College. He taught English to primary school students at the Freres College in Bethlehem for two years.
He then worked in Hebron from 1962 until 1969 for UNRWA as the Area Welfare Officer for the Hebron and Bethlehem districts. In this position, he was in charge of social and welfare activities including supervision of case work; handicapped programs; distribution of food and medical supplies; directing and supervising boys’ youth activities centers and sewing centers for girls as well as after school activities at all those centers: Arroub, Fawwar, Deheisheh, Aida, and Azzeh camps. In this position he supervised case workers, youth leaders, sewing centers instructors and community workers.
The Area Welfare Officer job gave Yusuf the opportunity to travel to the USA for the first time in 1966 as a representative of Jordan to the Chicago International Program for Youth Leaders and Social Workers. After the 1967 Naksa, he worked in Chicago for two years as a social worker and youth advisor for minority children at a community house on Chicago’ s west side and for six years in finance at the Quaker Oats Company. While working full time he put himself through College at the age of 33.
He obtained a BA degree with Honors from Roosevelt University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Yusuf then worked internationally as a financial controller in Saudi Arabia for multiple companies owned by the Mawarid Group among many others. He is currently a consultant and financial advisor in Riyadh and is serving as Treasurer and Board Member of the Advanced Learning School in Riyadh. He was a member of the American Business Group Board in Riyadh from 1990 to 1998.
Aline Khoury, Programs Director
Aline Khoury is a cultural manager, producer and researcher living and working in Palestine. Aline has worked with several arts and cultural organizations across Palestine; managing spaces, producing exhibitions and public programs, as well developing institutional partnerships and strategies. She was involved in several local and international networks, including Qalandiya International, Shafaq- Jerusalem Arts Network, and Arts Collaboratory. She studied History of Art and Social-Anthropology (B.A.) in Jerusalem, and Aural & Visual Cultures (M.A.) in Goldsmiths University, London.
Nicolás Jaar, Sound Residency Program
Since 2008, Nicolás Jaar has released music under various guises spanning shades of pop, ambient, noise, and club music. Since 2013, he has curated the Other People label, releasing the visual & audio work of artists Africanus Okokon, Jena Myung, Maziyar Pahlevan and the music of Aho Ssan, Saint Abdullah, Dienne, and Lydia Lunch among others. He is a current member of performance ensemble ¡miércoles! Alongside choreographer Stéphanie Janaina, and part of the band Darkside. In 2019, Jaar assembled the Shock Forest Group, a collective which has been exploring the myriad layers of colonial, ecological and institutional violence that interlink on the site of a forest built to be bombed in Zandaam, NL. In 2018, Jaar transformed Dar Jacir’s food shack in Bethlehem, Palestine, into a sound studio where he has held sound workshops for children and artist residencies. In recent years, Nicolás has mainly focused on education, teaching sound-editing and listening workshops to emerging musicians and non-musicians alike in institutions such as the Museo de la Memoria in Santiago, Chile, AdBK in Munich, Germany, free.wav in Attappadi, India, Festival 4x4, Chiapas, Mexico, Dar Jacir and Alrowwad in Bethlehem, Palestine, among others. Nicolás is a Capricorn and once walked from Turin to Marseille.
Lina Bani Odeh, Office Manager
Lina Bani Odeh is an artist living and working in Palestine. After finishing her B.A. in Contemporary Visual Arts at the International Art Academy - Palestine, she continued her career working as a project coordinator and office manager with various cultural organizations and festivals in Palestine, including Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center (Ramallah) and Qalandiya International. She works in managing art spaces, organizing workshops, as well as producing projects and exhibitions with Palestinian and international artists.
Ala’ Abed, Communications and Program Coordinator
Ala’ Abed (b. 1998 Jerusalem), working as a communications and program coordinator in Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir since September of 2023. Her educational background includes a Bachelor's Degree from Birzeit University, majoring in English Language and Literature with a minor in Translation. Ala’ has cultivated a passion for photography, languages, writing memoirs, and cross-cultural communication, and has been working as a freelance translator in Arabic, English, and Turkish since 2021, she also works as a part-time remote executive assistant and event coordinator for Global Hope 365 in California.
Ala’ has been working in the cultural sector in Palestine since obtaining her BA. She worked in A.M. Qattan Foundation as an intern and a full-time employee in Ramallah before relocating to Bethlehem.
Reem Khatib, Program Coordinator and Sound Studio Manager
Reem Khatib (1999), born in Jerusalem, holds a bachelor's degree in English literature coupled with a minor in translation and is currently completing her master's degree in sociology, both at Birzeit University. Besides their role at Dar Yusef Nasri Jacir as programme coordinator and sound studio manager since October 2023, Reem previously worked as an English teacher for adult beginners. Their language proficiency and translation expertise have been honed through various projects, including collaborating with organisations like Metras Global, Al Qaws, and Al Daleel, alongside interpretation abilities and transcription services.
Passionate about exploring the intersections between literature, culture, and society, Reem actively participates in a variety of activities, including volunteering with youth centres such as IPYL, tour-guiding workshops at the Saraya Centre for Community Service (Jerusalem, the old city), and music workshops. They have been participating in many activities organised by Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research. They developed an interest in music at a young age and are familiar with multiple musical instruments. Reem participated in (Un)building Listenings workshop with Nicolas Jaar in May–July 2022. Using skills they acquired from the workshop and working with Ableton software, Reem co-founded the Palestine Beats workshop in collaboration with Valeri Orth, music teacher at Berkley University, facilitating songwriting, beat-making, and compassionate communication for 20 participants from cities around Palestine.
Walid Al Wawi, Website
Walid Al Wawi is a Jordanian Palestinian-native, working in painting, performance, video and installation. He received critical acclaim for his academic and purest approach to objects and physical documentation that dialogue with the political and cultural identity of the Palestinian body in diaspora, it’s implication on the post colonialist dream of pan Arabism and vice versa.
In 2011 Al Wawi was awarded The Shiekha Manal Young Artist Award, followed by a scholarship from the Shiekh Salama Art Fellowship which earned him his masters degree in Fine Arts by Central Saint Martins, University of Arts London. Through out his practice Walid has had solo exhibitions at Art16 London, DUCTAC, and JamJar in Dubai; group shows at Jameel Art Center UAE, Darat Al Funun Jordan, Qattan Art Foundation Palestine, MMCA Seoul, XX Bienal Santa Cruz, FIAC France, Incubarte Spain, Abudhabi Art and Art Dubai UAE; and was a resident with The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in South Korea.
Walid is the founder of “Samt for Art and Research” a virtual foundation that manifests primarily in a digital format through Samt.co. Its strict online presence is set to further its goal of democratising art accessibility and pushing the boundaries of the physically confined white space to a more contemporary and digital approach; opening the receptivity of art and discourse from Southwestern Asia and North Africa to an international audience from all regions with no geo-political restrictions on humans or art.
Since it’s establishment through Samt, Walid mentored and curated the works of numerous aspiring artists from the MENA and collaborated with the Tate Exchange, Darat AlFunun and many other renowned galleries and foundations around the globe.
Qais Assali, Volunteer
Qais Assali (b. 1987 Nablus) is an artist, designer and educator. His works with photography, video, installation, lecture performance, graphic design, and in the archives seek to engage and subvert national geopolitical power dynamics. His interdisciplinary work stages questions between site and the body in relation to his own identity and locale in order to debunk metaphoric surrounding contested geographies.
His work has been exhibited at the Chicago Cultural Center; Rashid Diab Arts Centre, Khartoum; SculptureCenter, New York; Darat al Funun’s Lab, Amman; Jeune création, Paris; Festival Artes Vertentes de Tiradentes, Brazil; Temporary Art Centre, Eindhoven; 6018North, Chicago, solo exhibitions at Akademirommet, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; Khan Al Wakala, Nablus; and Michigan State University Union Art Gallery.
Assali has been teaching at a number of academic institutions in Palestine, recently was a Visiting Assistant Professor for the Critical Race Studies Program at Michigan State University 2018-19, and currently a Core Fellow at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. After his graduation from the International Academy of Art Palestine, he pursued and holds an MFA in Studio Art from Bard College, New York and an MA in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Hamza Badran, Volunteer
Hamza Badran (b.1993)s a film maker and visual artist based in Basel, received a BA in contemporary visual art from the International Academy of Art-Palestine in 2018, and he is currently attending a master program in Fine Art at KunstInstitute HGK-FHNW in Basel
Advisory Council
Abdelfattah Abusrour, Adila Laïdi-Hanieh, Jorge Tacla, Sari Khoury, Hassan Muamar, George Al'ama, Diana Buttu, Zahi Khoury
The following individuals have contributed to the founding of Dar Jacir as an organization and while they have moved on to other things they have remained an integral part of our family:
Motasem Al-Ghnimat, Project Coordinator, 2018 – 2019
Samer Al-Barbari, Custodian/Groundskeeper/Chef, 2018 – 2019
Hassan Muamer, Site Engineer, 2018 - 2019
Susanna Gonzo, Intern, Spring 2019
Abeer Saadeh , Admin and Finance Officer 2018
Ibrahim Burnat, Coordinator, 2018
Khaled Hourani Advisory Council 2017 - 2019
Dyala Husseini Advisory Council 2017 - 2019