Nour Bishouty is a multidisciplinary artist working across video, sculpture, works on paper, digital images, and writing.
2025 Biennial Year Find out more
Broadly concerned with gaps in archival memory and the Western production of knowledge and fantasy, her practice explores notions of permission and articulation in cultural narratives overwritten by dispossession and displacement.
Bishouty’s work has been exhibited internationally including at Art Jameel, Jeddah (2024); La biennale de Québec (2024) Quebec City; Cooper Cole, Toronto (2024); Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, Toronto (2022); the Museum of Contemporary Art MOCA, Toronto (2021); Darat Al Funun, Amman (2017); Casa Arabe, Madrid (2016); Access Gallery, Vancouver (2015); the Mosaic Rooms, London (2015); and the Beirut Art Centre, Beirut (2014). Her artist book “1—130: Selected works Ghassan Bishouty b. 1941 Safad, Palestine — d. 2004 Amman, Jordan”, edited by Jacob Korczynski, was co-published in 2020 by Art Metropole and Motto Books. Upcoming projects include solo exhibitions at Cooper Cole, Toronto (March 2025) and the Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City (Aug 2025).
Liverpool Biennial 2025
'Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had ', 2025
Through sculpture, photo-collage, drawing, writing, and textiles, Nour Bishouty foregrounds questions around permission and articulation, referencing cultural narratives and histories which are often overwritten through the dispossession of land and property and the displacement of communities. Her works appropriate and unsettle the impulses of tourism and sightseeing, investigating the resulting gaps in archival memory and the Western production of knowledge and fantasy.
This multimedia installation, entitled ‘Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had’ builds upon an oil painting by the artist’s father, Ghassan Bishouty (1941-2004). Bishouty uses the artwork ‘Al-Wadi’, which depicts a Bedouin tribe in the desert of Jordan, as a jumping off point to create new pieces which extract from and preserve
Through sculpture, photo-collage, drawing, writing, and textiles, Nour Bishouty foregrounds questions around permission and articulation, referencing cultural narratives and histories which are often overwritten through the dispossession of land and property and the displacement of communities. Her works appropriate and unsettle the impulses of tourism and sightseeing, investigating the resulting gaps in archival memory and the Western production of knowledge and fantasy. This multimedia installation, entitled ‘Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had’ builds upon an oil painting by the artist’s father, Ghassan Bishouty (1941-2004). Bishouty uses the artwork ‘Al-Wadi’, which depicts a Bedouin tribe in the desert of Jordan, as a jumping off point to create new pieces which extract from and preserve the original – drawing on its form, content, and cultural and personal significance. Through doing so, she creates distance between the viewer and the source material, withholding access, understanding, or resolution and instead, offering new systems of navigation that impress new readings onto the painting and onto each other. The resulting installation is a continual and evolving investigation into the fate of a personal archive – that of a prolific but little-known Palestinian Lebanese artist, whose works, narratives, and lands have been and continue to be dispossessed and erased. Courtesy of the artist. Originally commissioned for Stewart Hall Art Gallery, Pointe-Claire, 2023.
'Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had ', 2025
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Nour Bishouty, ‘Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had’. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at Walker Art Gallery. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
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Nour Bishouty, ‘Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had’. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at Walker Art Gallery. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
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Nour Bishouty, ‘Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had’. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at Walker Art Gallery. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
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Nour Bishouty, ‘Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had’. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at Walker Art Gallery. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
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Nour Bishouty, ‘Staffage’, 2023 Liverpool Biennial 2025 at Walker Art Gallery. Photography by Mark McNulty.
Venue
Walker Art Gallery
William Brown Street, Liverpool, L3 8ELAccess facilities available
View venue
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Nour Bishouty, Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had, 2022. Courtesy of Gallery 44 and SAVAC, Toronto Canada. Photography by Darren Rigo. -
Nour Bishouty, On our Wadi Sabra adventure with Ali-f and Raweya, 2022. Courtesy of the artist. -
Nour Bishouty and Ghassan Bishouty, 0°, 0° (1981-83, 2022). Courtesy of Gallery 44 and SAVAC, Toronto Canada. Photography by Darren Rigo. -
Nour Bishouty, Visible Regions, 2022.Courtesy of Gallery 44 and SAVAC, Toronto Canada. Photography by Darren Rigo
