TIFF Lightbox
350 King St W, Toronto,
Gallery Atrium, (Lobby)

The Stones Know Our Names

Jude Abu Zaineh

Opening Reception Wednesday, September 24, 6pm-7pm

Jude Abu Zaineh’s The Stones Know Our Names gathers archival fragments of Palestinian life into an unfolding conversation across time and space. Abu Zaineh sees the archive as a living witness of colonial violence that also holds strong traces of Palestinian selfhood and renewal. The archival materials she uses include recipes and photographs of plants, land, and people. Through acts of collecting, reframing, and layering, The Stones Know Our Names transforms these archival materials into an active participant in developing a renewed image of Palestine and its people’s collective identity. Abu Zaineh’s exhibition carries ancestral knowledge while simultaneously offering pathways into speculative futures.

Archival material remains inseparable from the land itself, where stones, soil, and everyday objects bear the imprints of generational colonial violence and genocide. The archives’ presence in this exhibition affirms a continued relation to Palestine’s history that invites new forms of imagining the multiplicity of its diverse existences. Abu Zaineh asks how an archive might operate as both a record and a seed.

Jude Abu Zaineh is a Palestinian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist-curator working across art, food, science, and technology studies. Her work develops counter-archive practices and investigates themes of culture, displacement, storytelling, diaspora, and belonging, through de-colonial and feminist perspectives. She examines ideals of home and community influenced by her childhood and upbringing in Southwest Asia. 

Abu Zaineh is the recipient of several awards including, the 2020 William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists, and was one of the first selected artists to participate in a collaborative residency with the Ontario Science Centre and MOCA Toronto (Canada). She has presented her works at Ireland Glass Biennale; Malta Society of Arts, Valletta, Malta; Cultivamos Cultura, São Luis, Portugal; Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, Lisbon, Portugal; Centro de Cultura Digital, Mexico City, Mexico; SVA, NYC, USA; Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, USA; Forest City Gallery, London, Canada; Art Gallery of Windsor, Canada; Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris, France; Museum London, Canada; Museum of Glass, Washington, USA, and more.

Her work has been featured in VICE Arabia, PBS, NPR, across CBC Canada platforms, Canadian Artmagazine, NEUES GLAS-NEW GLASS: art & architecture magazines, and on the cover of fuse: the Museum of Glass Magazine.

Abu Zaineh's works can be found in the permanent collections of The Museum of Glass (USA), Art Windsor-Essex (Canada), The City of Windsor's Public Art Commission (Canada), as well as private collections internationally.

She received an MFA from the University of Windsor (Canada) and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (NY, USA), where she was an RPI Humanities, Arts, & Social SciencesFellow and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellow.

She maintains an active studio practice between upstate NY, USA and southern Ontario, Canada.

Generously Supported by Media City Film Festival

Co-presented by

Artcite Inc

Gallery TPW

Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography

Online

Check out this online program of four exception short films from our program:

Fragmented - Director: Tanya Marar, Balolas Carvalho

After 25 days of genocide, a pioneering Gazan journalist and former political prisoner flees to Malta, honoring his daughter’s plea for a future together. Fragmented captures memories of exile, the human cost of occupation, and an unbroken spirit resisting oppression—driven by belonging, memory, and the pursuit of justice in Palestine.

Blood Like Water - Director: Dima Hamdan

Shadi embarks on a secret adventure, and accidentally drags his family into a trap where they only have two choices; either collaborate with the Israeli occupation, or be shamed and humiliated by their own people.

Visiting the Dead - Director: Elias Issa Halabi

Visiting the Dead follows Palestinian landowners on their annual visits to lands isolated behind the Israeli separation wall near Jabal Abu Ghneim (now Har Homa settlement). Through personal stories and quiet moments of return, the film reflects on dispossession, ecological loss, and the enduring connection to land under settler colonialism. Produced as part of the Academy of Finland-funded project Present-futures in/of Palestine, it offers a poignant look at everyday resistance and the politics of presence.

$17.74 - Director: Justin Mashouf

A young filmmaker follows the transformative journey of a former gang member incarcerated since the 80s, when an act of compassion for the people of Gaza amidst prison walls sparks a viral movement of solidarity and hope.