Samah Hijawi is a visu­al artist, researcher, and cura­tor of Palestinian des­cent. She came to Belgium in 2014. Samah’s oeu­vre is very diver­se and inclu­des exhi­bi­ti­ons, lec­tu­re per­for­man­ces, pod­casts, and par­ti­ci­pa­to­ry pro­jects. In 2020, for example, Samah cre­a­ted The Ramallah Club Network, a series of pod­casts about the com­plexi­ty of the Palestinian dias­po­ra, in col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with Radio Al Hara and Kunstenfestivaldesarts. She is also wor­king on a PhD in the arts on the aes­the­tics of repre­sen­ta­ti­on in art­works lin­ked to the his­to­ry of her nati­ve Palestine.

Typically, her pro­jects usu­al­ly span seve­r­al years. One example is Aesthetics of the Political, a pro­gram in which artists col­lec­ti­ve­ly reflect on how they trans­la­te their poli­ti­cal ide­as into aes­the­tic form. In 2020, she laun­ched Kitchen Table. In this long-term pro­ject, Samah explo­res various culi­na­ry his­to­ries and cul­tu­res to bet­ter under­stand how they influ­en­ce our cur­rent food poli­tics. This work starts from a his­to­ri­cal per­spec­ti­ve on tra­de and food cul­tu­res, inclu­ding our spi­ri­tu­al and mytho­lo­gi­cal con­nec­ti­ons to food, in order to rela­te them to con­tem­po­ra­ry food cul­tu­res in cities.