Samia Halaby Received Prestigious MUNCH Award

Jerusalem-born, USA-based Palestinian artist Samia Halaby has just been announced as the second ever winner of the MUNCH award. The prize honours artists who show courage and integrity in their work, reflecting the legacy of Edvard Munch, who supported artistic freedom. This award comes following the cancellation of Halaby’s 2024 retrospective at Indiana University Bloomington’s Eskenazi Museum of Art being cancelled in 2023 over so-called “safety concerns”, which Halaby believes was actually called off in an effort to suppress Palestinian voices in the midst of the war in Gaza. She will be honoured at an award ceremony at MUNCH in Oslo on 24 October 2025.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OeX_uPBcts

“Just the fact that they are interested in giving an award like that to someone like me has meaning”, says Halaby about the award in a video about her practice presented by MUNCH. Halaby’s announcement as the winner of the award comes shortly after her first major US retrospective - which was due to open in 2024 - was cancelled at the end of 2023 over “safety concerns”. At the time, Halaby told PBS News that “it’s obviously an extension of what’s happening in Gaza, where Palestinians are not allowed to speak or express our opinion, or, in my case, because it wasn’t a political show, provide a role model to students as to what intellectual activity could be like.” Later in October 2024, a painting referring to the escape of Palestinian political prisoners made by Halaby in 2022 - Six Golden Heroes - was removed from Michigan State University.

Yet, despite these career setbacks that seem to be directed towards her ethnicity, race, and beliefs, Halaby has not kept quiet. Her retrospective was cancelled after everything had been planned and prepared for, the artworks had been shipped and catalogues had even been printed. The abrupt nature of the event caused Halaby to launch a petition and publicly challenged the cancellation. But, despite her best efforts, she stated to Democracy Now that she never received an explanation. “They never gave me a reason, and they never responded. And they never even talked to me”, she said, “So I got the impression that they didn’t like my, from a very brief phone call with the director of the museum, that, one way or the other, my general attitude and support of Palestine and criticism of Israel and U.S. partnership, U.S.-Israel attacking Palestine, and especially the massacre, the unbelievable massacre in Gaza, both destruction of people and of culture, that my anger with that and my support of the Palestinians was the cause.”

In response to both her impressive artistic career that spans many decades, combined with her activism, Halaby has been awarded by a prize that champions artistic freedom in a time of increasing political and social pressure, winning NOK 300,000 (almost $30,000). As part of their official statement, the jury of the MUNCH Award 2025 said: "Halaby believes that innovative approaches to painting can reshape how we see and think - not just in terms of aesthetics, but also by opening up new ways of thinking about education, technology, and broader social issues. As an activist, she has been organizing for causes concerning class, race, and Palestine since the 1970s. Halaby has been a vocal critic of censorship in the arts for decades, which she herself has faced, and overcome.”

While Halaby is predominantly known as a painter, her artistic practice is multifaceted and she is credited as being central to the development of digital art. In addition, she has also had a long-term commitment to protesting injustices. “After I gave up on the New York art world - because they gave up on me so completely - I became an activist and started connecting to the Arab community and to solidarity with other activist tendencies”, says Halaby in the film produced by MUNCH, “I am who I am, I know who I am, and I know what I want to do and I’m going to do it if I can. And I'm lucky enough I am able to. There are artists in Gaza who are not able to in Gaza right now.”

Yet, while this award reminds the world of Halaby’s activism, the difficulties of speaking up as a Palestinian artist in exile, and the neverending devastation occurring in Gaza, she still sees beauty in our world, saying: “As much as I have gone through a lot of pain, and watched my parents go through a lot of pain, and all of the community and all their separation from their relatives, at the same time I see incredible beauty and I'm a materialist and an optimist and I think it shows in my artwork.”

Samia Halaby will be honoured at a ceremony at MUNCH in Oslo on 24 October 2025