Belonging through Practice | Gallery Talk
For the London Festival of Architecture 2026, the Palestine Collective seeks to inaugurate its exhibition with a speaking event and panel discussion on the evening of June 26, 2026. Titled ‘Belonging through Practice’, this programme seeks to foreground architectural and artistic practices that engage with questions of Arab diaspora, displacement, and the reconstruction of identity across geographies.
As part of the programme, we have invited 3 academics and practitioners whose work resonates with these themes across the MENA region. Rather than following a traditional lecture format, we hope to foster dialogue through paired presentations, allowing for meaningful exchanges between complementary practices. Each speaker will be invited to share selected past or ongoing work for ten minutes, followed by a moderated discussion with fellow speakers and the audience.
Speakers / Panelists:
Nihad Sharief is a Black Muslim Sudanese woman born to first-generation immigrants, with a strong interest in Sudanese architecture and cultural identity. Her work explores how built environments can reflect heritage, memory, and displacement. Inspired by current events in Sudan, she aims to use design to raise awareness and create meaningful spaces that reconnect communities with their cultural roots.
Dr. Mirna Pedalo is a Bosnian architectural practitioner, researcher, and scholar whose interests lie at the intersection of Architecture, urban development, and environmental issues in post-conflict societies. In 2019, she received a PhD from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. Mirna is an Associate Lecturer in Media Studies at the School of Architecture, RCA, and teaches across several universities in the UK.
Hazem Jamjoum is a Palestinian educator and lead editor with the recently-established publishing house Safarjal Press. He holds an MA in Arab and Middle Eastern Studies from the American University of Beirut and Modern Middle East History from New York University. His translation of Ghassan Kanafani’s The Revolution of 1936-1939 in Palestine was published by 1804 Press in 2023.
Moderator:
Zain Al-Sharaf Wahbeh is a London-based Palestinian archival researcher and Architect at Orms. She completed her architectural studies at the University of Edinburgh, the Royal College of Art, and the Architectural Association. She confronts the erasures of her Palestinian hometown in Yafa through archival and documentary practices.
