14 November 2025, 19:00 - 22:00
Young Revolt
art exhibition, talk on the future of the Middle East and Dabke workshop
curated by Raidan Baqi
Nikki Giovanni
Rabee3, meaning spring, is an event exploring the legacy and imagination of the generation that came after the Arab Spring.
Plan for the evening:
The pop-up exhibition by young, emerging Arab artists, the Arab Offspring, including Aisha Hachem, Milo and members of the Mahaba Collective, reflects on the past while imagining the future and envision new possibilities for the Middle East.
Opening talk by Professor Abdulbaqi Shamsan, a Yemeni sociologist, writer, and theatre-maker. He will contextualize the space and offer a framework for understanding the complicated history of the 2010s in the middle east.
Dabke workshop led by Samer Karaja in collaboration with Dabke Night.
This event is walk-in and open for everyone, but centers youth
Suggested donation for participation: €3 - €15
you can pay with card or by QR code
Dabke Night is an Utrecht-based foundation that has been highlighting Arab culture since 2016 through cultural events, training programs, and workshops focusing on the social dance called dabke. Dabke is a popular folk dance found throughout the region — from Palestine to Lebanon, and from Syria to Jordan. More than just a festive dance, dabke is a living form of cultural heritage that has been passed down from generation to generation, from one family to the next. Dabke is not just about dancing — it’s a way to celebrate, to resist, and to stand your ground.
Samer Karaja is a Palestinian farmer, dancer, and choreographer from Safa village, near Ramallah. He is a member and choreographer with El-Funoun Palestinian Dance Troupe, founder of Street Dabkeh, and part of the international production Badke. Samer has led Dabkeh workshops across the U.S. and Europe, connecting movement, community, and cultural memory through rhythm and collective expression.
Aisha Hachem is a Lebanese-Romanian transdisciplinary artist based in Utrecht. Working across weaving, sound, text and installation, she builds a practice that political and personal - a practice rooted in memory and rupture, in the fragility of language and the quite endurance of inherited gestures. Her work emerges at the intersection of abstraction and storytelling. Guided by the language of textiles, she draws from traditional Middle Eastern weaving techniques ; not to recreate the past, but to transform it.
Milo is a Lebanese visual artist based in The Hague. Their work is often inspired by the instability of personhood, place and its social meaning, ghosts and haunted symbolism, and technology—specifically digital imagery and recording, internet-age media—and their alternative histories.
Al Mahabba House is an art collective and alternative publishing initiative founded by Den Haag-based Lebanese artists Jana Assaad and Milo Sharafeddine.
About Young Revolt
Young Revolt is a series of events organized by Raidan Baqi, Yemeni artist and former BAK Young Fellow. Catering to a younger crowd, he’s preparing different kinds of gatherings: peer-to-peer workshops for and by youth, spoken word, an evening on food and nourishing, pop-up exhibitions, discussions and sharings focused on collective
