Beyond the Present
Art Exhibition, Beit Hagefen/alKarma, Haifa, Sept.–Oct. 2025
Curators:
Dr. Ella Elbaz, and the students Hiba Zreak Elias, Marwan Fehmi Wehbeh, Elham Gzal Sayed, Aseel Zoabi, Mahmoud Shbat, Reem Mahmud Shalaata, Enab Lilawie
Artists:
Amina Mar'i, Hamody Gannam
Samia Basha, Marjan Ghanaim
Linda Taha, Munir Basha
It is often said that grammatically, Arabic has no future. Another way to describe this is to say that every Arabic word in the present tense is also in the future tense. Can we imagine a future that is utterly separate from the present? The word "future" in Arabic comes from the root that means "before" as well as "to receive." In a single word, the future thus touches upon what preceded it—the past—as well as what is yet to come.
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Our present moment closes off the horizons—a present of war whose end we cannot see, a present of starvation, massacres, displacement, and being held hostage; in this particularly precarious moment, we seek to open a space in which it is possible to think about the future, through the artworks of Palestinian and Israeli artists, in Haifa, 2025. In this way, we expose the potential of the present for both hope and destruction, for Israelis and Palestinians, in Gaza, Haifa, Nablus, or Jerusalem—spaces where a future of living safely, with dignity, and under a democracy can no longer be taken for granted. This exhibition imagines the future through and against the past and present.
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The exhibition is the outcome of an MA course in the Department of Arabic Language & Literature at the University of Haifa, taught by Dr. Ella Elbaz. The course examined a growing phenomenon in Israeli and Palestinian literature and art: imagining the future through science fiction, dystopias and utopias, in opposition to notions of stagnancy, deadlock, and the belief that if change is possible at all, it will only be for the worse.
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Throughout the course, the students were asked to choose an artwork that engages with the future—whether a future full of promise, uncertainty, or a sense of an impending disaster; whether a future of change, or rather, an endless continuation of the present moment. Each student chose the sounds, words, and lighting that would spark viewers to imagine a possible future.
