Emily Jacir - Biography

Emily Jacir is an artist and educator active in the Mediterranean region. Her work focuses on themes of transformation, translation, resistance, and the exploration of silenced historical narratives. She uses a wide range of media and methodologies including film, video, photography, sculpture, installation, performance and archival research to investigate personal and collective movement through public space and its implications for the physical and social experience of transmediterranean space and time. For the last twenty years, she has been working in southern Italy, primarily in Salento but also in Basilicata and Sicily. Her most recent work, We Ate the Wind, features a large cinematic installation that combines new and archival material, addressing questions of visibility and invisibility, proximity and distance, hospitality and exclusion, exploring specific migration policies and their consequences on individuals and communities. Drawing on rituals such as dances, processions and games, the artist charts the way space, collectivity and memories are claimed.

Emily Jacir has received significant recognition and awards, including: Golden Lion, 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); Prince Claus Award, The Hague (2007); Hugo Boss Prize, Guggenheim Museum (2008); Alpert Award, Herb Alpert Foundation (2011); Rome Prize Fellowship — Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, American Academy in Rome, Rome (2015); Arts and Letters Awards in Art — American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York (2023); and an honorary doctorate — NCAD, Dublin. Her solo exhibitions include those at: MCBA — Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (2023); Bozar, Brussels (2023); Space 204, Nashville (2022); Galleria Peola Simondi, Turin (2021, 2013, 2010); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2016–17); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2015); Darat al Funun, Amman (2014–2015); Beirut Art Center (2010); Guggenheim Museum, New York (2009). Her group exhibitions include: 60th Venice Biennale — Collateral Event, Venice (2024); MoMA, New York (2023); Manifesta 14, Prishtina (2022); Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2021); Fondazione Merz, Turin (2020); Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2018); documenta, Kassel (2017, 2012). Jacir is the founder of Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem.