Interview on we refuse_d

On the occasion of the exhibition we refuse_d, held at Mathaf: Museum of Arab Modern Art, Doha (31.10.2025 – 08.02.2026) and travelling to M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (13.03 – 07.06.2026), Faye Corthésy interviewed Vasıf Kortun and Nadia Radwan, co-curators of the exhibition.

The interview frames we refuse_d as an exhibition born out of urgency of responding to a climate of censorship, institutional silence, and the cancellation of Arab artists all over Europe and the United States, following the war on Palestine. The curators, Vasıf Kortun and Nadia Radwan, describe how the project emerged almost spontaneously from a conversation in Doha around the idea of “refusal,” which quickly became both its conceptual anchor and political stance. 

The exhibition does not follow a fixed curatorial script but develops organically through ongoing conversations with participating artists, many of whom were directly affected by censorship or displacement. The curators emphasize that coherence emerged gradually through shared concerns of solidarity, persistence, and care. Most works were newly commissioned and the process unfolded alongside real-time events, giving the exhibition a sense of collective thinking-in-progress.

Ultimately, we refuse_d positions art as both a form of resistance and a condition of survival. Rather than presenting artists as victims of political circumstances, the exhibition foregrounds refusal as a generative force. The exhibition is on view at M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp until 7 June 2026.