Lost Art of the Levant: Panel and Performance

Held at UVA's Overlook Gallery (175 Washington St., Brighton, MA 02135) and part of programming for the exhibition, The Lost Paintings: A Prelude to Return, this event will explore themes of reclamation, fragmentation, and rediscovery through music, performance, and Palestinian contemporary art. The program includes:

4-5pm: Guided Exhibition Tour with the curatorial team (optional)
5-6pm: Panel moderated by Nisa Ari with curator Joëlle Tomb and exhibiting artists Dina Khorchid, Noel Maghathe, Mado Kelleyan, RIDIKKULUZ, and Nardeen Srouji
6-7pm: Live Performance by local band Souq El-Jum3a

Light food and drinks will be provided.

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On view until December 17, 2025, this traveling exhibition gathers 53 artists from Palestine and its diaspora across time and borders to reimagine the missing works of Maroun Tomb, a Palestinian-Lebanese artist, whose 1947 exhibition in Haifa was lost amid the mass displacement and dispossession of the Palestinians during the Nakba. The works resurrect a moment that was nearly erased until it was discovered in archival documents. This traveling exhibition spans two Boston venues—the Brookline Arts Center and Unbound Visual Arts—and is presented in partnership with the Boston Palestine Film Festival. It is produced with the support from the Kone Foundation, the Fouad & May Tomb Foundation for the Arts, the Mass Cultural Council, and private donors.

More about the exhibition here.

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Souq El-Jum3a is a collective of musicians and Arab artists in diaspora, presenting Arabic music— in a spirit of artistic creative collaboration. The project strives to create a space for creative explorations through multi media including but not limited to music-making and videos. The name and idea of the project comes from (Friday Market) which is a spontaneous market (or souq) that assembles every weekend on the holy day of Friday around the margins of cities across the Arab world, souqs where people from all walks of life gather to socialize and engage in a process of exchange of products and ideas—some new, some old and refurbished or some even reimagined. Artists come to our “souq” to collaborate and create. A modern day Souq for art making, if you will. Since its inception, the group had released multiple original songs and music videos and collaborated with artists in the Arab world and in diaspora. Souq El-Jum3a’s first album “7afleh” was released last year. The band had performed on local and national stages and continues to grow since 2020.

Nisa Ari is an Associate Professor of Arts of the Islamic World at MassArt

Joëlle Tomb is an abstract painter, art advocate and curator based in Newton, MA. She was born in Lebanon and raised in Saudi Arabia and Canada, where she gained her Master’s in Education. Her grandfather, Maroun Tomb, was a prolific painter and her father Fouad Tomb is a modern Lebanese painter who dedicated his life to arts education. She served as a docent at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston for three years and facilitated various public art projects. She served on several board including the New Art Centre & Art Resource Collaborative for Kids. She also presides over the Fouad & May Tomb Foundation for the Arts, her family’s international art platform dedicated to preserving the family’s artistic heritage and to promoting art for humanity. Joëlle’s first solo exhibition took place in Newton City Hall (2019), and since then she has participated in several group shows locally and internationally. Her curatorial work includes, Mehswar “A Painter’s Return” (2022) at the Nearby Gallery in Newton, MA; Meshwar of an artist from Palestine to Lebanon: Dialogue between two generations Maroun & Fouad Tomb (2023) at Dar El Nimer for Arts & Culture in Beirut, Lebanon; and Aswat: Elevating Arab Women Voices (2023) at the New Art Center in Newton, MA.

Dina Nazmi Khorchid is a visual artist working with printed and woven textiles, integrating mark-making, photography and material studies. Her hands-on process intertwines design principles with analog and digital techniques, grounded in craftsmanship and artistic expression. Khorchid’s work explores themes of displacement, ecological grief and memory access. A third-generation Palestinian refugee and daughter of a disappeared Gulf War casualty, her work reflects personal and collective narratives of loss and resilience. She holds an MFA in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design, USA. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Abu Dhabi Art, Art Dubai, B7L9 Art Centre, Field Projects and 421 Arts Campus.

Noel Maghathe is a Palestinian-American multidisciplinary artist and curator. Their practice is deeply rooted in their heritage, searching for home within the body and memory. Through sculpture, performance, and light, Maghathe explores themes of identity, cultural memory, and longing. Their exhibitions and performances include the Abrons Arts Center, Art League Houston, Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati, 21C Museum, Mizna + RAWIfest in the United States as well as internationally in MMAG Foundation, Jordan; SPACE HUB, Palestine; Kino Club, Finland; and Sawtooth ARI, Tasmania.

Mado Kelleyan is an artist and experience designer specializing in how technology can be used to augment imagination. Her work uses immersive technologies to create portals into stories that are not so often told, engaging audiences through rich, multi-sensory experiences that foster connection, interaction and discovery. Kelleyan holds an MA from the Royal College of Art, UK. Her work has been featured in Esquire Middle East, Stir World, and The Dezeen Awards. She has exhibited in London at the Festival of Architecture, Breeze Film Festival, Design Festival, and Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem.

RIDIKKULUZ is a Palestinian-Egyptian-Jordanian multidisciplinary artist based in New York. Their figurative work memorializes family, chosen family, and the self while investigating religious, decolonial, cultural, and queer themes. RIDIKKULUZ belongs to the ballroom community as a member of the Haus of Telfar.

Nardeen Srouji is a Palestinian multidisciplinary artist born in Nazareth and based in Haifa. Srouji’s work centers on interventions that explore the fragile tensions and gaps between stability and instability, placement and displacement, familiarity and estrangement. Her practice investigates how identities and memories are negotiated in spaces marked by absence and loss. She received her MFA from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, and a BA from Haifa University in English Literature and Fine Arts. She also holds diplomas in Fashion Design and Art Studies and Education. In addition to her first solo exhibition at the Haifa Museum of Art in 2022, she has exhibited locally in numerous shows and biennials. She has participated in international residencies such as Artport Tel Aviv, ISCP in New York, and Fountainhead in Miami.

Image Credits: Haidi Motola