Emily Jacir is an artist, filmmaker, and educator from Bethlehem who has been teaching at the International Academy of Art Palestine for the last ten years. She is one of the world’s most important and influential contemporary artists and renowned for works about transformation, questions of translation, resistance, movement (both forced and voluntary), exchange, and silenced historical narratives.
Jacir’s works have been exhibited in significant international group exhibitions since 1994, including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; and dOCUMENTA (13) (2012). She has shown in five consecutive Venice Biennales (2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2013); the 29th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2010); the 15th Biennale of Sydney (2006); the Sharjah Biennial 7 (2005); the Whitney Biennial (2004); and the 8th Istanbul Biennial (2003). Jacir’s most recent solo exhibitions include the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2016–2017); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2015); and Darat il Funun, Amman (2014–2015).
Translation and painted mural at 136 Tenth Avenue, South Wall. (2014)
Jacir is the recipient of major art prizes and awards from around the world, including a Golden Lion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) for her work “Material for a film.” The jury noted, “The award is given for a practice that takes as its subject exile in general and the Palestinian issue in particular. Without recourse to exoticism, the work on display in the central Pavilion at the Giardini establishes and expands a crossover between cinema, archival documentation, narrative and sound.” In 2008 Jacir won the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum which honors outstanding achievment in contemporary art, celebrating the work of remarkable artists whose practices are among the most innovative and influential of our time: “Combining the role of archivist, activist, and poet, Jacir creates poignant works of art that are at once intensely personal and deeply political. Her work often addresses the circumstances of the Palestinian community, but also highlights the general condition of exile and the negotiation of tenuous borders as she focuses on the mundane details of everyday life as well as momentous historical events.” Furthermore, Jacir is the recipient of a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund in The Hague (2007); the Alpert Award (2011) from the Herb Alpert Foundation; and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome (2015).
Jacir is an adventurer who loves to hike up volcanoes, dance tarantella, and walk everywhere and anywhere. Rome is her spiritual home. She is currently working in collaboration with her family on an exciting new project in Bethlehem which will be unveiled later this year.
