This year’s gathering for DIWAN: Forum for the Arts offered many things: a place to share photographic firsts, messy embodiments of language, testimonies of resilience, and studio lessons in front of an audience of peers who understand. The museum held the event September 19-20, hosting dozens of Arab American artists, creatives, and researchers across the US who shared poetry and prose readings, film screenings, music performances, and presentations to highlight issues and honor accomplishments.

This year was especially exciting as the Arab American National Museum rang in its 20th anniversary.

“This anniversary is more than a milestone,” said AANM’s Director Dr. Diana Abouali. “It’s a celebration of the people, stories, and cultural legacies that have shaped Arab American life for generations. It's a testament to our communities’ continued resilience in the face of crises here in the United States with the war on arts and culture, against Pro-Palestinan speech, and against Palestine, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and everywhere our people call home.”

The theme this year was “The Houses We Build for Ourselves.” This title is especially fitting, as many visitors and artists have described the museum as “home” since opening in 2005.

“As you present your work today,” Abouali addressed attendees, “listen to your peers and form budding friendships and partnerships. Strengthen the ones that already exist. I encourage you to imagine these conversations as the foundations for the houses that we are building together.”

Read on for a few noteworthy presentations that took place during the DIWAN event.

Paintings with Sudanese National Treasure, Mohammed Omar Khalil

“The community we were looking for was the one we found in Mohammed Omar Khalil.”
– Amina Ahmed

Mohammad Omar Khalil is a Sudanese-American painter, printmaker, and teacher whose artistic work spans six decades. Khalil is a pioneer among modernist artisans, standing as the first artists from Africa to use Cubist elements. He’s also celebrated as the Arab world’s first printmaker.

After receiving an education at Khartoum's School of Fine and Applied Art and working abroad in Italy, Khalil immigrated to the US in 1967, mastering his printmaking skills and working alongside African American artist and printmaker, Robert Blackburn. This led him to establish the renowned Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in New York and the Asilah Printmaking Workshop in Morocco.

Isra El-beshir, Director of Museums at Washington and Lee University, walked attendees through a recent exhibition featuring Khalil’s work, depicting his artistic process, lived experiences, and inspiration.

Khalil’s work is influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan, Syrian poet Andonis, and others. For example, he spent three months reading an Andonis poem, which inspired his painting, “Harlem.” And the Dylan Series, inspired by Bob Dylan’s music, is his largest etching series. In this series, he used two plates on printed sheets to create a single image. The collection marks a significant milestone in Khalil’s life as well in African art.

[Mohammad Omar Khalil] held back tears when talking about how his carpenter father taught him everything he knew and instilled a sense of craftsmanship and a strong work ethic in him.

El-beshir said, “The Dylan series is significant because it led to the shift in the larger museum narrative from traditional primitive African art to one that embodies the contemporary and modern expression of art.”

El-beshir shared more examples of Khalil’s work, like his colorful, dynamic print pieces in the Common Ground Series, which showcase his range of skill in black and white, large scale, abstract, block work, and muted colors.

Jenna Hammed, artist and art worker, captures her life-changing experiences in getting to learn from printmakers like Amina Ahemd and Mohammed Omar Khali. They showed her how to translate histories and struggles into the creative process. Hammed recalls long nights of experimentation and the exchange of free-flowing ideas, food, and music.

Hammed described Khalil’s work in two words: “collage homage” and references his “masterful use of techniques to achieve a multilayer experience–image transfer, marking, etching, the starkness in black in monochromatism–just to name a few,” she said. “Compositionally, his work tends to document the effect of artists he favors, places he’s visited, and lyrics that echo through his mind’s eye, which he gestures through abstraction and iconographic means.”

He held back tears when talking about how his carpenter father taught him everything he knew and instilled a sense of craftsmanship and a strong work ethic in him. His father pushed him through school, telling his son’s teachers to “kill him,” which at the time was the Sudanese way of saying to “teach him.”

Creating community, Hammed argues, is what the studio space is all about, and is ultimately necessary for mediums like printmaking.

“Consider what we have presented today as a case study on the impact of artists forming their own spaces to reclaim the role of gathering, producing agency and authenticity to generate a deeper, more meaningful quality of work,” she said.

Ahmed also recognizes the powerful need for community. “The community we were looking for was the one we found in Mohammed Omar Khalil,” she says.

The two artists are excited to co-organize an exhibition of Khalil’s work at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Gallery that will open in Spring 2026.

With quite an introduction, it was an honor to hear Khalil speak about his childhood and journey into printmaking.

“I call myself the black sheep of the family because I was the only one who left Sudan…I had a wonderful childhood. There was love in my family,” Khalil said.

He held back tears when talking about how his carpenter father taught him everything he knew and instilled a sense of craftsmanship and a strong work ethic in him. His father pushed him through school, telling his son’s teachers to “kill him,” which at the time was the Sudanese way of saying to “teach him.”

But Khalil had his own ideas about his path that differed from his father’s hopes for him. He thought he’d be an architect but realized he wanted to be an artist. His father, like so many fathers past and present, lamented his choice.

“He said to me, ‘That’s for people who don’t do anything.’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘You’re going to die of hunger.’ I said, ‘No, I will be a teacher.’”

Khalil wanted to do something different from his peers who left Sudan to build a career in England and came back “with the same ideas.” He went to Italy. Then he immigrated to the US, proving to anyone who doubted he could create, teach, and make a living doing what he loves.

Lunchtime Panel Honoring 20 Years of Storytelling and Community Building

Attendees enjoyed a savory spread during a lunchtime panel that delved into the Arab American National Museum history over the last 20 years. For over two decades, the museum has served as an artistic playground, cultural haven, and keeper of history for Arab communities.

Dr. Anan Ameri, activist, scholar, author, and founder of the Arab American National Museum, explained how the idea for the museum came from the need for Arab communities to be the ones to share their own narratives.

“We were sick and tired of other people narrating our story in their name,” Dr. Ameri said.

"I remember when I walked into the community room and felt at home. I saw my father, grandmother, great-grandmother, and friends. All their stories fell into the space.”
– Jumana Salamey

Dr. Ameri and the team who dreamed up the museum ran into a few challenges. The Arab world encompasses so many from different faiths, regions, and backgrounds. Museum organizers wanted to know: how does one create a narrative with so many different plotlines?

Dr. Ameri, who is an experienced sociologist, turned to research groups all over the country to help. They also visited other museums like the Asian American Museum and the Chicago Mexican Museum.

“It was not the effort of one person; it took an army to build this museum. I was just lucky to be in the right place at the right moment,” Dr. Ameri said. “It was an honor for me to be part of this.”

When asked to share a moment that especially captures the museum’s beginnings, Dr. Ameri points to the time a community activist stood in front of city hall and confronted the mayor. “He said, ‘Mayor Hubbard, eat your heart out. We are here,’” she recounted.

Other joyful moments included getting to see Arab American children walk through the museum for the first time. “Seeing those kids come in and laugh and cry was very satisfying,” she said.

While establishing a nationally-recognized institution for Arab arts and culture is worth celebrating, leaders are still protective of their communities. Director Diana Abouali and her team has had a lot on their plates with COVID, the Palestinan genocide, and the all-too-familiar anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric that comes with the tightening of national security.

During the first month of the Palestinan genocide, Aboual recalls the museum’s hesitancy to have an award ceremony. They thought about cancelling the event but decided against it.

“People appreciated it. We were finally in community,” she said. “And this was when Arabs outside Dearborn and throughout the rest of the country were having a hard time…” she said.

Deputy Director Jumana Salamey has also been with the museum since its inception. While she was a volunteer she was inspired by the museum’s transformative programs and unapologetic artists. She saw herself and the people she loves in the museum.

“I remember when I walked into the community room and felt at home. I saw my father, grandmother, great-grandmother, and friends. All their stories fell into the space,” Jumana said.

Contemporary Photography from Yemen Marks a Significant Historical Moment

“If you’re an artist, we’ll teach your work and learn about you.”
– Ibi Ibrahim

Another inspiring session included New York visual artist Ibi Ibrahim’s presentation on photography from Yemen. He discussed the labor of love that was curating a Yemeni narrative during a time when the loudest narrative was the Western one, which focused on Yemen’s war, trauma, and disaster.

In 2018, Ibrahim and his team produced an exhibition called “On Echoes of Invisible Hearts: Narratives of Yemeni Displacement.”

“The point of the show was to explore themes of loss and estrangement,” Ibrahim said. “We wanted to give artists who deal with war and trauma a way to reimagine national narratives through independent documentation.”

Ibrahim worked with six artists, including Yasmine Diaz, who was AANM’s first artist in residence. The six artists chose Beirut as the site of their exhibition, which was going through turmoil at the time. At the end of the art tour, the prints were destroyed, but the team still had the catalogs.

“I just remember having this idea that those catalogs could stay forever,” Ibrahim said. “We didn’t sell them, we just handed them out. I think there were about 500 of them.”

This idea led to many more photobooks featuring young Middle East artists, particularly Yemeni artists, who are often missing from the grander artistic narrative from this time period.

“We got this idea to go to Yemen, and when I say ‘we,’ I mean crazy me,” Ibrahim laughed.

It was hard to find artists and writers in Yemen. While Ibrahim had a database of artists, many of them changed careers. Everyone in Yemen, it seemed however, had access to Instagram.

“We searched for artists on social media,” he said. “I told them, ‘If you’re an artist, we’ll teach your work and learn about you… We want to remind you that even though your country is in turmoil, artists and creatives can still produce work and make sure it’s recognized whether inside or outside the country.”

The number of risks that Ibrahim and others took to build artists and create programs with them was immense. Yemen had numerous restrictions during wartime, and they needed permission for everything they did. Despite the restrictions, they created programs like one where writers gathered around cafes and restaurants to talk and even host an established writer or critic.

The collective gained steam. Eventually, they started a publication. There were a few close calls, and Yemeni authorities had a lot of probing questions, nearly shutting down the production.

“That production could have been shut down, but we were willing to take the risk just to have those few voices come out,” Ibrahim said.

He didn’t stop there. In 2019, he decided to create a gallery. “It was a small gallery. We just wanted to turn the light on for contemporary photography for Yemen,” he said.

There was a lot of international interest in the gallery. They didn’t love the title that came with it, a.k.a. the “art gallery in a war zone,” but they ran with the exposure to their artists. One show turned into multiple. Then COVID hit and their funding got cut. This led to them losing the art spaces, as they were unable to afford rent.

Ibrahim wasn’t deterred. He wanted to take all these experiences, materials, and learnings in Yemen and share them in a single source. So in August 2024, after three years of production, Makan Press published and debuted Photography from Yemen.

“We didn’t really know how it would launch. But then it just went kind of mad,” he said. “Everybody started buying it online, and soon we would hear from art bookstores around the world.”

They sold out of the first edition within six months. After printing a second edition, the book was acquired by the MET, New York Public Library at Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. Makan Press eventually won an award for best emerging publisher. Makan Press went on to amplify visual narratives of the larger Global South through many more “thoughtfully curated art books.”

Writing Iraq’s Wounds and Wonders

“Iraqis have always practiced poetic truths and lyrical sounds.”
– Dr. Deborah Al-Najjar

We Are Iraqis, edited by Nadje Al-Ali and Dr. Deborah Al-Najjar, is a collection of essays that explores Iraqi artifactism and daily life in the context of war and its afterlife.

Dr. Deborah Al-Najjar talked about the importance of capturing the frailty of life in a warzone. “Iraqis have always practiced poetic truths and lyrical sounds, capturing the voices of the populace,” she said.

While the book was published in 2013, it has led to many more discoveries and connections within the Iraqi community.

Dunya Mikhail, poet and writer, points to the book’s continued significance in the midst of Iraq’s recent legalization of child marriage. Eleven years ago, Mikhail interviewed women and girls who had escaped ISIS. Girls as young as nine were stolen from their families and forced into marriage.

“The Iraqi government fought ISIS on the battlefield,” she said. “Yet today, Iraq's parliament has endorsed a law that parallels ISIS practices. This year, it legalized child marriage, betraying survivors and marking a tragic step backwards for the lives and dignity of Iraqi girls.”

This law makes it so that girls and boys as young as 15 years old can be married off.

“Legalizing child marriage is a victory for the worldview that prioritizes tradition over profess, control over empowerment, and silence over expression. It’s a violation not only of human rights but the very language of childhood…” Mikhail said. “A silence settles into the soul of every girl who is married off before her time, leaving her with a question of what she might have been. The silence is not just theirs, it's ours too.”

The book, which carries stark realities, is also the gift that keeps giving. It led to some important discoveries from writer Noor Al-Samarrai, for example.

As an undergraduate at Berkley, Al-Samarrai worked on her thesis about architecture in Iraq during the 30s and 50s. She did what every good researcher does—search the library. However, she realized there was little research on Iraq during this time.

“I was searching for work by Iraqis depicting what life was like in Iraq and finding nothing,” she said.

Al-Samarrai was disheartened about the representations of Iraqis she did find. “They painted them as either terrorists or the oppressed bodies,” she said. “It wasn’t until I came across We are Iraqis that there was something in the entire library that I could connect with.”

The lack of literature about Iraqis inspired Noor to start an oral history project. In 2016, she spent a year living in Oman and gathering oral history. She told a vulnerable story about one of her interviews with an Iraqi family she grew close with. The father, who was moved by her openness, crossed several lines with her, making several inappropriate advances toward her. This understandably deterred her from the project. Eventually, she returned to her work, resolving to put more emotional distance between herself and interviewees.

“I was searching for models to do this kind of work as a young woman in my 20s, and I couldn't find them…” she said. “And now in doing this work, I'm finding that allowing objectivity is necessary.”

Al-Samarrai’s discovery of being Iraqi has changed her path for the better. She wants to continue being part of the coalition rebuilding the Iraqi narrative. To do this, she needs more stories.

“We have to remember to record these stories but also build a speculative belief in the future,” she said. “And we need many, many more voices to do that.”

An Embodied Essay on Palestine & Performance in Diaspora

“The reality we’re in is absurd… [The strategy] isn’t about making something absurd. I’m just pointing to the thing that is absurd."
– Mette Loulou von Kohl

At the end of the night, artists Leila Awadallah and Mette Loulou von Kohl graced the audience with two unforgettable performances illustrating what it’s like to be Palestinians in exile or a witness to a genocide in real time. It especially focused on how the current war in language embeds in the body and overwhelms the nervous system.

As people in exile, both artists believe they have a responsibility to build narrative power.

“We are in a narrative war in this country. Culture is a way to shift narratives,” she said. “One of the first things that the occupier does is destroy culture… It’s our responsibility to hold onto our cultural identity and understand that our culture is a political vehicle.”

Both their performances emphasized the absurdity of the Western lens on the Middle East. In her piece, Leila Awadallah danced frantic snippets while shouting various common phrases about Arabs one would hear in the news or on social media. She talked in fragments, never quite finishing her thoughts. It felt as if one were scrolling or changing channels.

“We are getting slammed with bite-sized pieces that are jumbling our nervous systems in an insane way,” Awadallah said. “My piece hits on all these fragments, throwing them all into the air, and understanding how it lands on our bodies.”

Awadallah became more charged as the performance went on, shaking, writhing, wringing, and thrusting her body until she reached a boiling point.

“We don’t have a lot of spaces to let rage fill your body up,” she said. “How do we know what that is and then find that expression of rage?”

The most absurd part of Kohl’s was the Jell-O dessert, which she introduced as a symbol for the ground-breaking project that will pave the way of the future and change the course of Western history. She dressed the part of an empty CEO in a slick, blue powersuit, using robotic gestures, corporate buzzwords, and walking the audience through a visual presentation. Kohl reached a breaking point too.

During the second portion, she took off every piece of her suit and slipped into a dominatrix-style body suit and slinked around the gelatin. Then in the third act she moved around in a sleepy daze against a backdrop of clouds.

Quite possibly the most memorable part of the entire performance was when she destroyed the JELL-O with her bare hands and ate it.

“The reality we’re in is absurd… [The strategy] isn’t about making something absurd. I’m just pointing to the thing that is absurd,” Kohl said.

Absurdity can make people question their reality to the point where they doubt they have any voice or power at all. It can shake even the best of artists. This is why having a center like AANM is so important for their expression.

“In some ways, I don’t even want to be an artist anymore. Sometimes I feel like it’s really futile in the moment we are in,” Kohl said. “But spaces like this remind me that I actually want to do the work, and it’s really important.”