M HKA, Antwerp

Read more about this exhibition, the artists, and our public programme via the online platform created specifically for the exhibition we refuse_d  werefused.ensembles.org

we refuse_d brings together fifteen artists to explore the tensions between refusal, endurance and creation. The exhibition responds to the wave of cancelations, censorship, silencing, and public vilification directed at artists, writers, musicians and scholars who have taken clear and often courageous stances on war, conflict and injustice.

Within the context of the war on Palestine, many have chosen to withdraw from exhibitions and cultural events — often at significant personal and professional cost. In such a climate, the act of making art becomes both a gesture of presence and an act of refusal: we refuse to stop making art, to stop caring, to stop thinking, to give up, or disappear into enforced silence.

we refuse_d evokes the spirit of the Salon des Refusés, an historical exhibition (1863, Paris) that gave visibility to marginal voices. The title also resonates with Hannah Arendt's 1943 seminal essay We Refugees, asserting the shared, situated absurdity, and fragile optimism born from displacement, trauma, and exile.

Above all we refuse_d is an exhibition about life, presence, solidarity and the necessity of making art.

Curated by Nadia Radwan and Vasıf Kortun.
we refuse_d is produced by Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, on the occasion of their 15th anniversary, and presented in partnership with M HKA.