Casa Árabe, in collaboration with the Canada Council for the Arts, the SAW Centre in Ottawa, and the Embassy of Canada in Madrid, presents the exhibition “Driving Through Palestine” by multidisciplinary artist and academic Rehab Nazzal. It can be seen in Madrid from June 12 to October 18, Monday to Sunday, from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., in the Column Room of Casa Árabe (Calle Alcalá, 62, Floor -1, Madrid). Free admission until capacity is reached. In Spanish.
For most Palestinians, freedom of movement is severely restricted. Traveling through their own territory means passing through checkpoints, barriers, and multiple forms of surveillance. In this context, movement becomes not only a daily experience of occupation but also an act of resistance.
Between 2010 and 2026, artist and academic Rehab Nazzal undertook the risky task of driving across the entirety of occupied Palestine. The result is an extensive photographic and audiovisual project that rigorously and urgently documents landscapes, sounds, and realities rarely visible outside the territory.
Curated by Stefan St-Laurent, Driving Through Palestine maps contemporary Palestine through Nazzal’s eyes. The roads she travels are marked by signs and warnings that highlight the conditions imposed by the occupation. Thanks to the artist’s perseverance, a unique body of work emerges, revealing a fragmented geography and offering essential testimony to life under Israeli military control.
The exhibition is a collaboration between Casa Árabe, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Saw Centre gallery in Ottawa, and the Embassy of Canada in Madrid. Its inauguration is part of the program of the annual conference of the International Association for Middle Eastern Studies (IAMES), founded in 1967, and sponsored by the University of Calgary.
Rehab Nazzal is a Palestinian-Canadian artist, researcher, and scholar whose interdisciplinary practice encompasses photography, video, installation, and sound art. Her work examines the consequences of military occupation, settler colonialism, environmental violence, and policies of control over bodies and territories. Through documentary and long-term research methodologies, Nazzal explores the everyday experiences of Palestinian communities under occupation, as well as the relationships between memory, landscape, and resistance. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is part of a sustained commitment to social justice, human rights, and the production of knowledge from critical and decolonial perspectives.
