Larissa Sansour b. 1973

Overview

Larissa Sansour (b. 1973, Jerusalem) is an interdisciplinary artist working with film, photography, installation and new media. Her work is immersed in contemporary political dialogue and often borrows from the language of cinema, science fiction and popular culture to construct complex visual narratives about Palestine and the Middle East. Through video, photography, experimental documentary and staged imagery, she translates political realities into cinematic worlds that resemble entertainment formats, creating parallel universes in which alternative histories and futures can be imagined. References ranging from science fiction and spaghetti westerns to horror films converge with social and political themes, producing works in which humour, spectacle and dystopia coexist.

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Works

Soup Over Bethlehem- Mloukhieh, 2006
Earth, 2009
Shoe, 2009
Floating, 2009
Trespass the Salt (in collaboration with Youmna Chlala), 2011
Olive Tree, 2012
Mediterranean Floor, 2012
Manger Square, 2012
Window, 2012
Window, 2012
Food, 2012
In the Future, They Ate From the Finest Porcelain 2, 2014
In the Future, They Ate From the Finest Porcelain 2, 2014
In the Future, They Ate From the Finest Porcelain 1, 2014
In the Future, They Ate From the Finest Porcelain 3, 2014
Revisionist Plate, 2015
Revisionist Production Line, 2015
In the Future They Ate From the Finest Porcelain, 2016
Bethlehem 15, 2019
Bethlehem 11, 2019
Bethlehem 10, 2019
Bethlehem 9, 2019
Bethlehem 8, 2019
Bethlehem 7, 2019
Bethlehem 6, 2019
Bethlehem 5, 2019
Bethlehem 4, 2019
Bethlehem 2, 2019
Bethlehem 1, 2019
In Vitro, 2019
Bethlehem 12, 2019
Bethlehem 3, 2019
Bethlehem 13, 2019
Nation Estate, 2012
Jerusalem Floor, 2012
Window, 2012
Main Lobby, 2012
Poster, 2012
A Space Exodus, 2009
Flag, 2009
Lost, 2009
Palestinaut, 2009

Biography

Sansour studied Fine Art in Copenhagen, London and New York, and has developed a practice that combines film, installation and photography to question ideas of nationhood, displacement, mythology and the construction of identity. Her works often adopt the structure of cinematic storytelling, using elaborate sets, costumes and visual effects to explore how narratives about history and territory are produced and circulated.

Sansour has had several major solo shows internationally. She presented Heirloom, an exhibition curated by Nat Muller for the Danish Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. Other recent solo shows include: These Moments Will Disappear Too, Charlottenborg Kunsthal, Copenhagen (2025); Galeria del Paseo, Manantiales, Uruguay; Nunu Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan (2025); While We Count Our Earthquakes, Kunsthalle Extra City, Antwerp, Belgium (2025); Larissa Sansour, Emerson Contemporary, Boston, USA (2025); Larissa Sansour, Amos Rex, Helsinki, Finland (2024); Larissa Sansour, Göteborgs Konsthall, Gothenburg, Sweden (2024); As If No Misfortune Had Occurred in the Night, KINDL, Berlin, Germany (2023); Tomorrow’s Ghosts, Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg, Denmark (2023); Familiar Phantoms, Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, UK (2023); Larissa Sansour, Gifu Museum of Contemporary Art, Gifu, Japan (2022); Larissa Sansour, Art Exchange, Essex, UK (2022); Larissa Sansour, KinoKino, Sandnes, Norway (2021); Heirloom, Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden (2020); In Vitro, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE (2020).

She has participated in several group exhibitions including: While We Count Our Earthquakes, Kunsthalle Extra City, Belgium (2025); Bounding Histories, Whispering Tales, Art Encounters Biennale, Romania (2025); The Past Never Was, It Only Is, Reykjanes Art Centre, Iceland (2025); Five Acts of Love, ACCA, Australia (2022); Let The Song Hold Us, FACT Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Liverpool, UK (2021); Larissa Sansour, Søren Lind, In Vitro, MOMus Contemporary, Thessaloniki, Greece (2019); Cosmological Arrows, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden (2019); The Moon, National Maritime Museum, London, UK (2019); Moonlight, Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg, Sweden (2019), among others.

Her works are part of notable collections including the Wolverhampton Gallery, UK; the Imperial War Museum, UK; Louis Vuitton Collection, France, the Carlsberg Foundation, Denmark; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark; N.B.K., Germany; Nadour, Germany; Salsali Private Museum, UAE and the Barjeel Foundation, UAE.

In 2016, Larissa was awarded the Guanajuato International Film Festival (GIFF) Award for In The Future They Ate From The Finest Porcelain, in the Best Experimental Short Film category. In 2015, Sansour’s aforementioned sci-fi short was nominated for the Muhr Short Competition organised by the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF). She is the beneficiary of a grant from Arab Fund for Art & Culture and financial support for In The Future, They Ate From The Finest Porcelain, from The Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN) a film she produced and co-directed with Soren Lind. She was invited as an artist in residence with the Moving Museum, Istanbul for three weeks in September 2014.

Sansour currently lives and works in London.

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Exhibitions