I Have Two Names, Which Meet and Part

Group Exhibition

Vernissage: 19.03.2025, 7-10 PM

Exhibition duration: 20.03.2025 - 04.04.2025

This exhibition explores themes of family history, inherited narratives, and the complex "in-between" experiences of second-generation immigrants, particularly in relation to Palestine and Lebanon. Developed and organized through dialogue among second-generation Palestinian, Israeli, and Lebanese artists and writers, the exhibition creates space for personal experiences to be shared and discuss Palestine and its history within today’s tense academic and social climate.

Through various artistic and literary forms, it examines racism, integration, and the alienation from one's own roots, as well as the transmission—or absence—of cultural traditions within bicultural upbringings. The works by Alexander Paula Salem, Christian Azzouni, Tali Bühl, and an artist who prefers to remain Anonymous reflect on shared grief, solidarity, and the intersections of personal and political memory. Questions of violence, representation, conditional Whiteness, and the contradictions within solidarity movements are also central, offering an exploration of identity, displacement, and historical continuity.

The exhibition's program includes a reading session featuring texts by Nicole Collignon, Alexander Paula Salem, and Tali Bühl, a collective reading and translation workshop dedicated to the works of Mahmoud Darwish, and an artist-led tour.

The exhibition's title is drawn from a poem by Mahmoud Darwish, honoring the artistic struggles that preceded this moment.

Public Program

19.03.2025 | 7-10 PM
Vernissage and Reading
by Nicole Collignon, Alexander Paula Salem, and Tali Bühl

26.03.2025 | 5-10 PM
Translation workshop of Mahmoud Darwish Texts and Reading circle

5-7:30 PM | Workshop

This workshop explores the challenges of translation, introduces different professional approaches, and engages participants in translating an excerpt from Mahmoud Darwish’s poem A State of Siege, written in January 2002 in Ramallah (West Bank) during the city’s siege by Israeli troops. The goal is to translate the same excerpt into as many languages as possible—every language spoken and translated is welcome. Additional assistance is available in German, English, French, Italian, Hebrew, and Arabic. Applications are open for up to 14 participants.

8:00-9:30 PM | Reading Circle

The reading circle will feature extended excerpts from A State of Siege. Participants who have translated the beginning of the poem are invited to read their versions aloud. Continuing with the theme of siege, the session will include a reading of the opening of the essay Memory for Forgetfulness (August, Beirut, 1982), reflecting on Mahmoud Darwish’s experience under siege in the Lebanese capital.

REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED for the Workshop** send us an email to sayhi@improperwalls.com to reserve your place as we have limited capacity.

04.04.2025 | 7 PM
Artists Tour

Artists Bios

Nicole Collignon studied creative writing and cultural journalism as well as language arts in Bachelor. She is now studying language arts in the masters programme at Angewandte, was nominated for Wortmeldungen Förderpreis 2022, and won the Wortmeldungen Förderpreis 2023. She is currently working on essays and her first novel.

Alexander Paula Salem is a Viennese artist with Palestinian roots. Since 2023, they have been studying in the class of Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Their artistic practice spans various media, primarily painting, poetry, and graphic art. Their work deals with violence and the stories we tell about it.

tali bühl (they/them) born in 1999 in hannover, grew up there and sometimes in tel aviv. now living between copenhagen, hamburg, and vienna, they study oceanography and creative writing. write prose and prosaic, more and more often essayistic. sometimes journalistic, for various newspapers and magazines. scholarship holder of the heinrich böll foundation, currently looking for—preferably by the sea.

Christian Azzouni's artistic practice focuses on the reality connoted in photographic images, which is depicted within a painterly process. Drawings and Sketches from his head by pencil are being transferred onto the light-sensitive material by a physical-chemical process. In doing so, he emphasises his own reflections and experiences on disproportionate power, social structures and racism. He graduated in Graphic Design & Photography at the University of Art and Design Linz in 2021 and in Art & Time / Photography at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2024. Since 2023 he has been studying Visual Communication at the University of Art and Design Linz and since 2024 Art & Image / Context with Alice Creischer, Andreas Siekmann, Ruby Jana Sircar at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Visual design by: Christian Azzouni

Organized and Curated by : Alexander Paula Salem, Christian Azzouni and Nicole Collignon

Photos: Urtė Špeirokaitė