The Face of the City

From Sunday, May 3rd to Monday, May 11th, as part of the Grandi Sogni curatorial project, the spaces of Atelier Cisterne at Fabbrica del Vapore will be activated with the exhibition The Face of the City by artist Shereen Abedalkareem, curated by Yasmine Aljarba.

"Activating the image is the best way to combat oblivion: the collected sounds constitute a memory of the place that allows the viewer to navigate through time and space."
Shereen Abedalkareem

Through sound archives, visual manipulations, and the layering of photographs and videos, Shereen Abedalkareem reimagines Gaza as an inhabited, lived, and shared space. A city made of everyday gestures, voices, and human relationships, removed from the exclusive narrative of war images. Face of the City interweaves archival photographs, testimonies of residents, and sound fragments, superimposing different temporal planes to crystallize the identity of places before destruction erases it. The images merge into a single visual architecture, allowing the viewer to navigate time and space.

Shereen Abedalkareem's solo exhibition is presented as part of ZONA K's LIFE Theatre Arts Media Festival, a multidisciplinary festival that explores the boundary between reality and fiction, intertwining visual art, theater, journalism, and activism.
The Face of the City program is structured around a series of public events designed to expand and deepen the exhibition's themes, creating opportunities for encounter, participation, and shared reflection. On May 3rd, the opening of the exhibition will feature a live link with the artist from Gaza, for a dialogue that transcends geographical and symbolic distances.

The closing of the exhibition will be accompanied by a lecture performance by Noura Tafeche, with the participation of Ivan Tresoldi, coordinated by the Biennium in Visual Cultures and Curatorial Practices at the Accademia di Brera, in which words, body, and space intertwine in an intense and participatory artistic presentation.

Shereen Abedalkareem (Gaza, 1998) is a Palestinian multidisciplinary artist whose work combines architecture, visual arts, and filmmaking; she lives and works in Gaza. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Gaza, Oslo, Paris, London, Berlin, Madrid, and Tarragona, and her work has been shown in various institutions, including the Museo Reina Sofía. Her awards include the

SAMAEHL Grant, UKS (2025) and selection for Talent Latent Scan (2024).

Yasmine Aljarba (Gaza, 1989) is a Palestinian visual artist and researcher. Born in the Al-Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, she has lived and worked in Milan since 2023. Her work explores
memory, roots, identity, and uprootedness, documenting the Palestinian experience inside and outside Gaza and investigating the presence and absence of the body and the land.

Grandi Sogni is an international research, artistic production, and design project dedicated to the visual cultures and contemporary materials of Palestine. Scientific Committee: Andrea Zanella,
Marco Negroni, Fabio Iannotta, Lucrezia Cippitelli, Rosanna Ruscio, and Domenico Scudero. The project is promoted by the Brera Academy of Fine Arts as part of JERUS-IT-ARTS,
funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Mission 4 Component 1 Investment 3.4). A multidisciplinary program spread across several Milanese institutions—exhibitions, lectures,
performances, screenings, and interventions in public spaces. At its core is the memory of Palestine and its communities. In collaboration with BASE Milano, Zona K, and Casa degli Artisti.

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The Face of the City
curated by Yasmine Aljarba
May 3 - 11, 2026
LIFE Theatre Arts Media Festival
Atelier Cisterne — Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan

Opening May 3, 5:00 PM
Exhibition Hours
Mon. – Fri. 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Sat. – Sun. 3:00 PM - 9:00 PM