Culture Resource is pleased to announce the grantees of the first round of Wijhat 2026, a program that supports artists and cultural actors through travel grants that enable them to participate in artistic and cultural activities in the Arab region and abroad.

The Wijhat team received 95 applications for this round. Of these, 82 were for international travel, 11 for regional travel, and 2 for both international and regional travel. The jury selected 10 projects based on the program’s evaluation criteria, taking into consideration geographical and travel destination diversity.

Grantees

Baraa Awoor, Palestine / Writer and illustrator
Destination: Egypt → Italy
Itinerary: Writer and illustrator Baraa Awoor will participate in the Bologna Exhibition to present and further develop her project, A Place Called Mama. While there, Awoor will participate in portfolio review sessions and professional meetings with publishers and agents. These interactions aim to evaluate the project’s editorial and visual framework and establish a publishing trajectory in European and American markets beyond conventional genre classifications.

Basera (Mohamed Mahdy / artist & photographer; Farida Youssef / curator), Egypt
Destination: Egypt → Denmark
Itinerary: Galleri Image will host a solo exhibition titled 455 Days by artist Mohamed Mahdy and curated by Farida Youssef, both members of Basera. The exhibition draws on Mahdy’s experience during his military service, exploring the contrast between memories captured on his phone and those left undocumented, questioning whether technology serves as a tool for remembering or reshapes memory. The project is conceived as an interactive experience examining the relationship between documentary photography, and memory and vision. The program will include an interactive guided tour and two seminars on experimental photography, organized in collaboration with the Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX) and Aarhus University, engaging students of documentary photography, art history, and artificial intelligence. The program concludes with a workshop reflecting on the history of photography across different communities and linking it with personal artistic practices and perspectives.

Raed Ibrahim, Jordan / Visual artist
Destination: Jordan → Austria
Itinerary: Raed is set to present his project, Sitting on a Sidewalk, at the Philomena+ exhibition, created in collaboration with Austrian artist Marlene Hausegger. The project will be featured as a joint work in the exhibition, which will be held in Vienna from late May through mid-July, and focuses on fostering exchange between artists from the WANA region (West Asia and North Africa) and Austria. The project emerges from an ongoing dialogue between the two artists, through which they reflect on their respective artistic practices and site-specific possibilities, specifically around Praterstern Square in Vienna. Raed’s research centers on capturing stories from public spaces, linking them to his recent and distant personal memories, expressed through symbols and visual signs. As part of the visit, Raed will deliver a lecture at the University of Arts Linz, further expanding the discussion on the artistic experience and its approaches.

Rayanne Fawaz, Lebanon / Dancer, choreographer, and urban agriculture researcher
Destination: Lebanon → Canada
Itinerary: Artists Rayanne Fawaz, Bassam Abou Diab, and Nadia Daou will take part in an artistic residency at Montreal Arts Interculturels Center to develop choreographic material for the project Buzur, directed by Rayanne in collaboration with Chanel Cheiban. Buzur is a multidisciplinary creative research experience exploring contemporary interpretations of dabke, highlighting its resilience in contexts of diaspora and colonial history. The residency will culminate in an exhibition combining dance, traditional music, and visual arts. With Bassam Abou Diab enhancing dancers’ training and Nadia Daou linking traditional music with contemporary approaches, the residency will foster interdisciplinary collaboration and support the artistic growth of the participating performers.

Radhouane Ajroudi, Tunisia / Poet
Destination: Tunisia → Colombia
Itinerary: Radhouane will travel to Colombia to participate in the Medellín International Poetry Festival, widely recognized as one of the world’s most prominent poetry events. Each year, the festival brings together leading local and international poets to present their work to a large and engaged audience. During the festival, Radhouane will perform poetry readings in Arabic, accompanied by Spanish translations, and participate in group seminars on poetry and arts. His visit will also include one-on-one meetings to discuss publishing and translation projects, as well as press interviews with specialized Latin American magazines and media outlets.

Atif Elhaj Saeed, Sudan / Translator, writer, and editor
Destination: Sudan → Germany
Itinerary: Atif will undertake a two-month translation residency at the European College of Translators in Schterlen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The residency offers translators a quiet workspace, a friendly environment for dialogue among resident translators, and access to a specialized library housing more than 125,000 volumes. While there, Atif will focus on translating the novel Au petit bonheur la brousse by Chadian-Swiss author Noël Nétonon Ndjékéry from French into Arabic. The translation is part of a broader effort to introduce Arabic readers to underrepresented Francophone literature, particularly works originating from Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Canada.

Mehdi Belhassen, Tunisia / Artist and music researcher
Destination: Tunisia → Niger
Itinerary: Mehdi will travel to Niger to participate in an exploratory residency to lay the groundwork for the project, At the Sources of Bori, in collaboration with NGO Forge Arts. The residency serves as a foundational phase for a collective creative project scheduled for Autumn 2026. The project explores the connections between Bori music traditions in Niger and Stambali music in Tunisia, approaching them as rituals that belong to the same Afro-Mediterranean historical lineage and that carry the memory of slavery and migration. During the residency, Mehdi will focus on immersing in Bori’s ritual and musical practices, meet with local artists while ensuring fair representation of women, conduct initial musical experiments, and help define the project’s aesthetic direction. The stay also includes logistical preparations for the 2026 collective residency and meetings with cultural institutions and potential supporters. The project embodies a South-South collaborative approach, aimed at highlighting endangered intangible heritage while promoting gender equality within artistic practices.

Nancy Naser Al Deen, Lebanon / Performance artist and scenographer
Destination: Germany → Lebanon
Itinerary: Nancy will travel to Lebanon to participate in an artistic residency at Amalgam Studio in Beirut, to contribute to the development of Matri-phagía, a dance performance created by Yara Boustany. The performance draws inspiration from Beirut’s cycles of destruction and rebirth, combining choreography with sculptural elements, video, and sound. Nancy will participate in the project as a professional dancer and performer during both the rehearsal phase and the international tour. She will also contribute to the collaborative creative process while further developing the work’s unique choreographic language.

Hend Jouda, Palestine / Poet and performer
Destination: Egypt → France
Itinerary: Hend is set to participate in the Avignon Festival, one of Europe’s leading performing arts festivals and an important international platform for artistic showcase, exchange, and dialogue on contemporary artistic issues. While there, Hend will present a poetry performance titled Being a Poet in Times of War, addressing an international audience as well as curators and programmers, paving the way for future touring opportunities. Hend will also participate in two panel discussions on poetry translation and performance poetry, deliver two lectures, and organize two workshops focused on poetry writing.

Hichem Merouche, Algeria / Artist and film director
Destination: Algeria → Sweden
Itinerary: Hichem has been invited as a featured artist in the Metaphysical Thresholds exhibition in Stockholm, where he will present a new visual artwork created specifically for this occasion, in collaboration with Yury Goybin. The project brings the two artists into an intergenerational dialogue that seeks to reposition the natural world and botanical life within politically engaged artistic practices, while retaining an introspective dimension. The two artists explore the multifaceted nature of plant agency, which, despite its deep roots, stands at the threshold of humanity’s confrontation with mortality, spirituality, and environmental and social crises. This approach brings both conceptual and aesthetic depth to the work. Hichem will reside in Stockholm and work on site for at least three weeks, ensuring direct engagement with the space and development of the artistic experience.

Jury:

Ammar Kessab, Algeria / Expert in cultural policies
Michèle Tyan, Lebanon / Filmmaker and editor
Salam Yousry, Egypt / Multidisciplinary artist and artistic director of the Choir Project

Image from the participation of Curator Salma Kossemtini and Multimedia artist Aziza Gorgi (Tunisia) in the Periferico international festival in Italy, as programmers of a Mediterranean-focused series, supported by the Wijhat program.