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Agenda: Soon ?

→ Festival
→ 19:00

27.04 — 13.05.26

Eye On Palestine:

Eye On Palestine Festival

→ Festival
→ 19:00

→ Splinter vzw
→ performance
→ 19:00

Thursday 30.04.26

Eye On Palestine:

Sound as Shelter: Deep Listening (Vol.4)

→ Splinter vzw
→ performance
→ 19:00

→ Exhibition
→ 19:00

01 — 17.05.26

Eye On Palestine:

Eye On Palestine: Nazeh Map

→ Exhibition
→ 19:00

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→ Documentary
→ 19:00

Friday 01.05.26

Friday Evenings:

Eye On Palestine: Between Reality and Documentary

→ Documentary
→ 19:00

→ Workshop
→ 18:30

Saturday 02.05.26

Eye On Palestine:

Gaza Beyond the Map: Activating Memory, Mapping from Diaspora

→ Workshop
→ 18:30

→ Splinter vzw
→ Film
→ 19:00

Sunday 03.05.26

Eye On Palestine:

Eye on Palestine: Wild relatives

→ Splinter vzw
→ Film
→ 19:00

→ Art Cinema OFFoff
→ Film
→ 20:00

Monday 04.05.26

Art Cinema OFFoff:

Art Cinema OFFoff: Will Hindle / Shellie Fleming (I)

→ Art Cinema OFFoff
→ Film
→ 20:00

→ Art Cinema OFFoff
→ Film
→ 20:00

Tuesday 05.05.26

Art Cinema OFFoff:

Art Cinema OFFoff: Will Hindle / Shellie Fleming (II)

→ Art Cinema OFFoff
→ Film
→ 20:00

→ Engagement Arts
→ 09:00

Thursday 07.05.26

Engagement Arts:

It Takes A Village: from bystander to engaged peer

→ Engagement Arts
→ 09:00

→ 019
→ Book fair
→ 11:00

09 — 10.05.26

019:

Ghent Art Book Fair

→ 019
→ Book fair
→ 11:00

→ Compagnie Cordial
→ Book launch
→ 19:00

Tuesday 12.05.26

Eye On Palestine:

Book launch: We Are Not Numbers

→ Compagnie Cordial
→ Book launch
→ 19:00

→ Talk
→ 19:00

Wednesday 13.05.26

Eye On Palestine:

78 Years After the Nakba: Reality, Resistance, and Western Complicity

→ Talk
→ 19:00

→ Splinter vzw
→ Film
→ 19:00

Sunday 17.05.26

Eye On Palestine:

Eye on Palestine: Foragers

→ Splinter vzw
→ Film
→ 19:00

→ Open Call
→ 09:00

29.05 — 30.08.26

Open Call: Tenniscoaches (June — August)

→ Open Call
→ 09:00

→ Democrazy
→ concert
→ 20:00

Thursday 12.11.26

Democrazy:

Tanya Donelly & Chris Brokaw

→ Democrazy
→ concert
→ 20:00

Full Archive

Agenda: Archive

→ Art Cinema OFFoff
→ 20:00

Monday 27.04.26

Eye On Palestine:

Eye on Palestine: Genet à Chatila

→ Art Cinema OFFoff
→ 20:00

→ Erfgoeddag
→ performance
→ 11:00

Sunday 26.04.26

Erfgoeddag:

Nadar Ensemble: Voiceless Mass (Raven Chacon)

→ Erfgoeddag
→ performance
→ 11:00

Sluiten

→ Documentary
→ 19:00

Friday 01.05.26

Eye On Palestine: Between Reality and Documentary

The final Friday Night of this season is also dedicated to Eye On Palestine. We are opening a group exhibition featuring Palestinian artists Hala Alnaji, Alaa Mahdi Kudaih and Mahmoud Abu Hamda. In the cinema, a conversation will take place regarding the book Between Reality and Documentary by Shahd Abusalama, with the author in attendance. Welcome!

Entrance: Pay What You Can

→ Documentary
→ 19:00

Entrance: Pay What You Can

From 19:00, visitors are invited to explore the newly opened Eye On Palestine: Nazeh Map exhibition at Kunsthal Gent’s Old House, offering a curated space to engage with the festival’s themes through visual art and documentation.

At 20:00, the evening continues with a talk by Shahd Abusalama, centered on her critically acclaimed book, Between Reality and Documentary: A Historical Representation of Gaza Refugees in Colonial, Humanitarian and Palestinian Documentary Film (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022).

Abusalama offers a rigorous anti-colonial reading of the filmic archive, investigating how Gaza refugees have been portrayed across three distinct cinematic traditions: colonial, humanitarian, and Palestinian documentary filmmaking, spanning until the 1993 Oslo Agreement. She dissects the visual and narrative strategies used in these films, revealing how they shape historical memory and political perception.

During this session, Abusalama will discuss the book’s findings, exploring the tension between “reality” and “documentary” representation. How do different filmmaking practices construct the image of the refugee? What are the ethical and aesthetic implications of these representations? And how can we read against the grain of the archive to reclaim agency?

This evening is organised in collaboration with the Ghent Coalition for Palestine, as a part of Eye On Palestine and the regular Kunsthal Gent Vrijdagavonden series, bringing critical discourse and artistic practice together in dialogue.

Eye On Palestine is a platform of cultural players and civil society organisations from Ghent, who want to visualise the Palestinian issue through art in various disciplines with room for reflection during debates and lectures. All proceeds from the festival will be donated to the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund (GASCF), a charitable fund dedicated to providing specialized medical care to children in Gaza and Lebanon who have sustained severe injuries due to war violence.

About

Dr. Shahd Abusalama is a Palestinian academic, writer and artist, born and raised in Jabalia Refugee Camp, northern Gaza. After a decade in the UK, she relocated to Barcelona in 2024 to support her recently-displaced family due to Israel’s genocide on Gaza. In Spring 2025, her PhD research at Sheffield Hallam University, which explores historical representations of Gaza refugees in colonial, humanitarian and Palestinian documentary films, was published in Between Reality and Documentary by Bloomsbury and SOAS Palestine Studies, leading to speaking tours in Spain, Ireland, UK and Japan. She is a contributor to Light in Gaza: Writings born of Fire (2022) and Gaza on Screen (2023), and her coverage of the genocide can be accessed on various publications such as the Electronic Intifada, The New Arab and Declassified UK. She has been blogging in English at Palestine from My Eyes since her late teenage years, with her writings on her people’s struggles under Israel’s brutal siege and occupation translated in various languages and reproduced for various platforms, including an Italian collection published by Lorusso Editore in Rome in 2013. A longtime member of Gaza’s Al-Assria Dabke Troupe, she co-founded Hawiyya Dance Company in London in 2017.

The Ghent Coalition for Palestine is a network of Ghent-based organizations formed in October 2023 in response to the ongoing violence in Palestine, uniting socially engaged residents to advocate for a just and sustainable solution that addresses both the current escalation and its deeper historical roots. The coalition calls for a true and lasting ceasefire in Gaza, an end to genocide, ethnic cleansing, occupation, apartheid, and illegal settlements, respect for international humanitarian law, the lifting of the Gaza blockade, the release of all political prisoners and hostages, and the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, based on international law and UN resolutions. It seeks to inform the public and urges the Ghent city government to go beyond earlier measures by excluding all companies complicit in human rights violations and pressing the Belgian government to support a true ceasefire, halt arms transit, impose sanctions, and uphold Palestinian rights internationally. The Ghent Coalition for Palestine remains committed to nonviolent actions of different sorts to meet its goals.

Eye On Palestine

Eye on Palestine aims to introduce the public to Palestinian and international directors, artists, writers, musicians, scientists and activists. Together they provide a unique view of the lives of Palestinians and their resistance to occupation, colonialism, Zionism and apartheid.

Friday Evenings

During Friday Evenings, we present a programme around one or more artists, a collective or organisation for 9 – 10 weeks. We offer local partners a platform. And we highlight artists with whom Kunsthal Gent is currently collaborating. Every Friday night is different: from performance, artist talk and book presentation to conversation, dinner or film screening.