Gaza Habibti is a photography exhibition that uses photojournalism to tell stories that challenge stereotypical narratives about Palestinians, presented by Berlin based non-profit Yura Visuals and its sister project Untold Palestine. After successful runs in several European, Arab, North and South American cities it is coming to Kuwait from April 6 to April 12 at Contemporary Art Platform in Shuwaikh in collaboration with the Palestine Film Festival Kuwait and Jump Kuwait. Bazaar spoke to the director of the exhibition, photographer Mohamed Badarne and social designer Haya El Khoury who spoke about the power of art to shift the narrative.

“What motivated us to start Untold Palestine was to reclaim our own narrative,” said Mohamed. “We wanted to challenge this image created by colonialism of Palestinians as powerless people without a culture who are always the victim. We work with about 25 photographers in Gaza and the West Bank. With the start of the war, we had a responsibility to support them and we did it by giving them a platform to sell their work as a way to meet their daily needs.”
This was the start of Gaza Habibti exhibition, that also honors the memory of thousands of Palestinians who lost their lives during the genocide in Gaza.
Mohamed worked as a high school teacher and with human rights organizations for many years before dedicating himself to photography.

He combined his interest in human rights and his experience as a teacher to teach photography workshops. His first exhibition was “Come back Safely” which documented the poor work and safety conditions of Palestinian construction workers in occupied Palestine.
“My focus was always on human rights and social change,” he says. “Many occupying powers around the world used photography and visual arts as a medium of control and to create stereotypes. We are also challenging the Arab image of the Palestinian as the hero. I mean, we are heroes – that’s obvious – but we can also sing and dance and swim and laugh and enjoy ourselves. All the struggle, all the resistance is about having the right to dance, to live, to enjoy life.”

Gaza Habibti depicts that reality.
The center piece of the exhibition is an installation of 1000 photos of martyrs depicting them in their daily life before the war.
“In this exhibition we’re talking about hope but there’s also a reality of things. For me the hardest part of the installation is the photographs of the martyrs,” says Haya El Khoury. “The interaction of the audience with the Memorial is very intense. They’re beautiful pictures. They’re smiling. There were cases where audience members did not realize they were photos of people who had passed away or they were finding people they knew that passed away. Or maybe they heard about it in the news, but there wasn’t a tribute to that person, and now they see it, and it is part of the exhibition. There is an importance to that. They are not just numbers,” says Haya El Khoury.

An architect by profession, Haya decided to dedicate herself full time to humanitarian work and art to make a difference on a grassroots and community level.
“Our slogan for Yura visuals is “Each story matters””, says Haya. “It’s a human responsibility to try to uncover some of these stories.”
Yura Visuals intend to expand their work to cover stories from Sudan and Yemen and other parts of the Arabic speaking world. As a Berlin based collective, they are working in a challenging environment hostile to Palestinian voices. We asked what it was like presenting the exhibition in that environment.
“There wasn’t even time to think twice about it,” says Haya. “Personally, I felt like there’s something that had to be done. We were not thinking about the consequences. During every exhibition we were scared whether the police were going to come or not? But this never stopped us, nor the gallery owner, nor the volunteers. We just did it. We want the exhibition to happen wherever the space is. If it’s small, we have an option for that. If it’s huge, we have an option for that. If there’s no money, we have an option for that. We just want to make it happen.”

As a non-profit exhibition Gaza Habibti operates on an egalitarian distribution system. Fifty per cent of the proceeds go to the photographers who sell their work and fifty percent is distributed equally among all the photographers in the collective. Tote bags, post cards and other merchandise is used to fund future productions.
“This is not a charity case, the photographers are working as professionals. We are supporting their dignity through artistic work and professionalism. That’s what we’re trying to do amidst this chaos,” says Haya.
With the start of the war the collective started training new photographers, especially women, created opportunities for them to work across many platforms and media channels like BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera.
Having taken the exhibition around the world with two shows planned in Paris and Marseilles later in the year, Mohamed says the upcoming Kuwait show has a special meaning for them.
“An exhibition in Kuwait is different than one in Amsterdam,” he says. “When exhibiting in the Arab world you feel like the audience is your family.”
Gaza Habibti will run from April 6 to April 12 at the Contemporary Art Platform, opening on April 6 in conjunction with the 2025 Palestine Film Festival. For enquiries about the exhibition in Kuwait and the Palestine Film Festival Kuwait contact @palestinefilmfest_kuwait
For more detailed information about the exhibition worldwide follow @untoldpalestine @yura.gug on Instagram.