Nora Sayyad’s UA Miniresidency public event is a pop-up photo exhibition titled Visible Palestine, based on her ongoing work. The future exhibition is envisioned in three parts. Portraits feature intimate images that tell the stories of Palestinians and their families, showing how everyday life and resistance coexist. These are supported by interviews collected with Iris Pajunen within the Solidarity Movements workgroup, which also gathers visual documentation of activism and communities that have supported Palestine in Finland and abroad over the decades. The Protests section aims to bring together streetphotography from multiple photographers, highlighting the diversity of communal actionand grassroots solidarity. It’s a project where photography and collective effort meet.
When: 18 December at 12:00-18:00
Where: HIAP
Language: Finnish & English
During her UA Miniresidency, Sayyad has been developing her ongoing project Visible Palestine. The exhibition presented at HIAP represents one of the first mini drafts of the upcoming full exhibition and serves as an initial attempt to organize existing material. Visible Palestine centers on Palestine and the stories of the Finnish-Palestinian diaspora, drawing from photography and archival materials. The project seeks to share the diverse experiences of Palestinians and the Finnish solidarity movement, while fostering a deeper understanding of Palestine and Palestinian culture in a context of ongoing existentialthreats. Palestinians themselves are a living archive, and the project recognizes that artcarries a responsibility: to act, to witness, and to preserve.The work explores urgent themes such as decolonization, intersectionality, peoplehood, diaspora experiences, dreams, occupation, and Finnish attitudes toward and involvement in the Israel-Palestine issue. The project is ongoing and continues to evolve. This project also positions art as an archival tool, for us and for generations to come, both personal and collective. It is a way to preserve the Palestinian identity that remains perpetually endangered. It seeks to give form and voice to the native land and to the time Palestinians are continually robbed of: the past, the present, and the future—again andagain. It belongs to a broader canon that strives to inform and to stop the ongoing genocide through archive and art.
Nora Sayyad (b. 1991) is a Finnish-Palestinian photographer and visual researcher. She works in the intersection of documentary and poetic, exploring belonging, memory, and identity from an intersectional and decolonial standpoint. She creates visual stories about diaspora, roots and hope, where personal and societal intertwine. Her works focus onhuman rights, communality, and the layers of lived experience. Sayyad has participated ininternational exhibitions, including The Lost Paintings: a Prelude to Return (2025–2026). Currently she is involved with projects that make Palestine and stories of diaspora visible. Sayyad holds a Master’s degree in Photography from Aalto University.