The Artists

Hussein was born in Rafah City to parents who were forcibly expelled from their town Yibna, which was depopulated and destroyed in 1948. He holds a bachelor’s degree in art education from Al-Aqsa University, received in 1999. A co-founder of Kayan Contemporary Art Group, he has remained active in the Palestinian art scene, participating in numerous workshops and exhibitions locally and internationally.

Khaled lost his sculptures and artworks when his home was bombarded in November 2024. After repeated displacements, he is currently living with his family in an unsafe inhabitable house. Amid the destruction, he began collecting mud and clay from craters left by missile strikes, transforming it into sculptures of human figures and faces. Khaled explains that “these sculptures are born from the mud of devastation, yet they carry the faces of Gazans who stand firm in the face of death.”

After completing each sculpture, Khaled intentionally destroys it, evoking the fragility of human life and the absurdity of war. He then reuses the clay to create another figure or face, carrying another story. Through this process, Khaled refuses to leave his sculptures as victims of colonial violence and instead, he reclaims agency and continually recreates and resurrects them.