Jumana Emil Abboud

Jumana Emil Abboud (Arabic: جمانة إميل عبّود) is a Palestinian artist living and working in Jerusalem.

Jumana Emil Abboud’s practice weaves together folklore, folktales, water lore, and the entangled legacies of human and more-than-human worlds, activating the survival of stories and landscapes in the wake of dispossession. Over two decades, she has worked across spoken word, drawing, video, walking, journaling - with more recent years extending into collaborative Water Diviners workshops - forms through which storytelling and collective reimagining unfold.

Her work has been included in several exhibitions and biennials, including the Aomori Contemporary Art Center (2024), the 8th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art (2023), the 23rd Biennale of Sydney (2022), documenta 15 (2022), the Jerusalem Show (2009, 2018), the Venice Biennale (2009, 2015), and the Sharjah Biennial (2005, 2011). She has had solo exhibitions at Cample Line (2023), TAVROS (2022), Darat al Funun - The Khalid Shoman Foundation (2017), Bildmuseet (2017), and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art (2016).

Recognitions include the Jameel Fellowship at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, in collaboration with the International Glass and Visual Arts Research Centre (Cirva), Marseille (2024-2025) as well as being shortlisted for the Joan Miró Prize (2025) and Artes Mundi 11 Prize (2025-2026).

Abboud was awarded the AFAC GRANT and the Pernod Ricard Fellowship, in addition to the Sharjah Art Foundation production grant. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Documenta 15 (2022), the Sydney Biennial, Venice Biennale, Sharjah Biennal, and the Istanbul Biennial. the Bahrain National Museum in Manama, the Arab World Institute in Paris, The Jerusalem Show, the Darat al Funun in Amman, at the Carré d'Art in Nîmes. at the Gallery for Contemporary Arts in Leipzig and at the Museo Fundacion Antonio Perez in Cuenca.