Intention of Return / Lentil Space
Intention of Return and Lentil Space are two separate books that explore the relationship between words, food, and memory. Intention of Return, a book by writer and artist Yusser al Obaidi suggests a movement towards a previous place in time, while Lentil Space, the cookbook Mophradat co-published with BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE, fixes a space with measurable boundaries, one to be filled with human experiences, and which carries lentils.
Both explore recipes as textual devices and forms that translate memory into instruction. In these publications, instruction acts as a mode of making present through gathering, not only conjuring memories within the present but also creating new ones.
In the spirit of these two books, and the intensity gatherings offer, we have invited different artists to share their stories drawn from memory, relationship to home and land, and forms of attachment that take meaning through collective experience.
During the evening, Mophradat is presenting its most recent publication, Lentil Space: Recipes From Artists’ Homes. The cookbook, was adapted from its namesake online program produced by Mophradat from 2021 to 2023, includes recipes chosen and prepared by artists. It is a celebration of the varied cuisine of the Arab world and its relationship with inherited food practices and the culture of getting together and talking around food.
The artists Jumana Emil Abboud, and Noor Abuarafeh & Mohamad Abdelkarim, use the Lentil Space cookbook as a prompt to engage the audience with food and stories around food.
The siblings Andrés and Francisca Khamis Giacoman will present their short documentary Baisanos (2025) for the first time in Amsterdam, where Francisca is based. The film follows the supporters of Club Deportivo Palestino, a Chilean football club historically linked to the Palestinian community. Chile is home to the largest Palestinian community outside of Palestine. Through the relationships produced by this sport the artists explore spaces of cultural memory, solidarity and the different shapes.... that return can take.
Yusser al Obaidi, writing from her position as an Iraqi born into exile, attempts to find a way to collectively navigate the loss and mourning of her homeland. How can we tend to the exilic wound in a way that does not bring us back to the nationstate and its grand narratives which had led us to our exile in the first place? She explores the neighbour and the sweet kleicha, as respective markers of home and land.
Jumana Emil Abboud is a Palestinian-Canadian artist whose creative practice explores cultural memory and futures through the reanimation of folklore and interconnected gatherings. Her work spans drawing, video, textual practice, spoken word performance, and the Water Diviners project – where stories are living entities, entangled in water and relation. Her work has been presented at Jameel Arts Centre (2026), de Appel (2024), Cample Line (2023), TAVROS (2022), documenta 15 (2022), Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons (2020), amongst many others. Recognitions include the Jameel Fellowship at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, in collaboration with the International Glass and Visual Arts Research Centre (Cirva), Marseille (2024-2025), and shortlisting for the 2025 Joan Miró and 2025–26 Artes Mundi 11 prizes. Abboud hasجمانة إميل عبودجمانة إميل عبودجمانة إميل عبود been awarded her PhD in Fine Art (2026), and is currently based in London.
Noor Abuarafeh is a visual artist working between Jerusalim, Rotterdam and Vienna, working across video, performance, publications, and video installations. Her practice focuses on memory, history, and archives, exploring the complexities of history representations in colonial contexts, and the challenge of representing the past when it is still present. Her work has been presented in biennials and exhibitions, among them the Venice Biennale (2022), Berlin Biennale (2020), Sharjah Biennale 13 (2017), Jakarta Biennale (2024), and Qalandia International (2018), as well as at institutions such as De Appel (2024) and Art Jameel (2024). She is currently a PhD candidate at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna and works as a tutor at the Dutch Art Institute (DAI).
Mohamad Abdelkarim is a visual artist, performer and cultural producer. After completing his MA at ECAV/Edhea, Switzerland, 2016 he turned towards producing text-based performances and became committed to performative practices based on multidisciplinary research, employing and reflecting on narrating, singing, detecting, doing, fictioning, and speculating. His performances have been included Interazioni Festival, Rome, Italy, 2022; and Festival Internazionale della Performance, Performative 04, at MAXXI L'Aquila, 2024, Interazioni Festival, Rome, Italy, 2022, At the Crossroads of Different Pasts, Presents and Futures, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy, 2018, among others. As part of his performative practice, he established "Live Praxes", a performance encounter that includes workshops, seminars, and performance nights.
Yusser al Obaidi is a decolonial feminist researcher, writer and graphic designer who seeks to acknowledge and enable the radical potential of intimate relational spaces. She works with themes such as diasporic identity, oral histories, Sufi epistemology, modernity/coloniality and the connection between micro and macro personal/political narratives. Her practice revolves around intimate forms of publishing and the mobilization of alternative knowledge circulation patterns for words that sits close at the skin. Her central concern: how can we affirm other ways of being/knowing?
Andrés and Francisca Khamis Giacoman’s work seeks to explore and portray the nuances of the Palestinian diaspora in Chile. Baisanos is their first film working together as directors.
Andrés Khamis Giacoman is academically trained in documentary filmmaking at La Casa del Cine in Barcelona and holds a postgraduate degree in Audiovisual Editing from Universitat Pompeu Fabra. His films and installations have been exhibited and screened at international festivals and institutions, including Locarno Film Festival, Cairo International Film Festival, Doha Film Festival, Uppsala Short Film Festival, FIDOCS, Gijón International Film, Festival, U22 – Fundació Joan Miró, Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research, Festival Proceso de Error (Valparaíso, Chile), Zilzal Sonic Ceremony, and the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025–26.
Francisca Khamis Giacoman is a multidisciplinary artist based in Amsterdam. Her practice, spanning video art, performance, and installation, explores fragmented diasporic memories, oral traditions, and the fluid nature of time. Her work has been presented in various international venues such as de Appel (Amsterdam), ExtraCity (Antwerp), Bienal de Artes Mediales (santiago), Rozenstraat (Amsterdam), Het Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam), Kunstverein (Amsterdam), Stroom (The Hague), Biblioteka (London), and Gold+Beton (Cologne), among others.
Please note: We are discontinuing our livestream services. Originally launched to maintain public events during the pandemic, this option is no longer feasible for us to sustain. We look forward to welcoming you in person at Perdu!
