[minna|منا]of us

At Participant Inc, the walls are painted black. For this show, the lights are off. Incense burns. An intimate sound mix by Falyakon plays. Every work gets its own spotlight. It's like a silent nightclub where you can only see what you get close to.

Turn to Elias Jesús Rischmawi's family portraits. A formal family commission. A snapshot of two generations on the grass, easy and close. Another of three generations on a gold sofa — a grandmother, her son, his son — the younger two with keffiyehs covering their faces. They’re the kind of photographs you'd find in a grandmother's living room. Proof they are present. Proof they are loved.

Move over to twins André and Evan Lenox-Samour, who use mother-of-pearl, abalone, and mussel shells, the inlay craft of the Hazboun ancestors, as their medium. In one piece, the eight-pointed Star of Bethlehem sits at the center of the nautical star — a quiet symbol of LGBTQ identity during years of repression. Up close, the forms whir like gears inside a clock. Step back and the whole sky opens up.

Take the elevator to Salma to encounter another sky. In 2020, Egyptian queer activist Sarah Hegazy wrote before her death: "The sky is sweeter than the earth. I want the sky." Xaytun Ennasr, who is Palestinian and trans, answers that line with another: "I want the land, not the sky," writing, in Arabic, across skies above deep red, blue, and forest green mountains, beneath a yellow sun.

A wish, a plea, and a prayer: to live in a world where you don't have to look elsewhere to dream, but can watch the sun rise and set over mountains. To be minna — of us, from us. Claimed.

[minna|منا]of us takes its title from the Arabic word minna, echoing the phrase minna wa finna—“of us” or “from us.” To be minna is to belong to a community. Curated by Palestinian–Egyptian–Jordanian artist RIDIKKULUZ, the exhibition is co-organized by PARTICIPANT INC and SALMA SARRIEDINE and features queer artists from the Palestinian, Jordanian, Lebanese, Syrian, and Egyptian diasporas. They are Xaytun Ennasr, Falyakon, Anka Kassabji, Alex Khalifa, André & Evan Lenox-Samour, Elias Rischmawi, Fares Rizk a.k.a. Sultana, and Basyma Saad.