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<span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Jude Abu Zaineh</span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">i look to the skies</span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; color: black;">University of Waterloo Art Gallery</span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; color: black;">January 8 - March 7, 2026</span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; color: black;">Opening Reception: Thursday, January 8, 5-8 pm</span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><img size="405674" style="width: 600px; max-width: 100%; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" width="600" id="x_id-D5C7D5F6-F653-4919-A61B-6CE1636DB970" alt="Jude Abu Zaineh promo_600px.jpg" data-outlook-trace="F:1|T:1" src="cid:D5C7D5F6-F653-4919-A61B-6CE1636DB970"></span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">In
<i>i look to the skies</i>, Jude Abu Zaineh creates a sanctuary rooted in the specificity of Palestinian cultural traditions and open to the infinite expanses above. At its center is Maqlouba, a traditional dish that is always shared, an emblem of hospitality
and community of great cultural and historical significance. Maqlouba anchors the work as a layered metaphor for diasporic life, where food becomes ritual, soft power, and cultural preservation, its ceremonial nature binding intimacy to sovereignty. Here,
Maqlouba becomes an archive, a vessel for memory, and a catalyst for transformation. Abu Zaineh works across disciplines including bioart, video, sculpture, and textiles, layering methods and materials into an evolving constellation of meaning. </span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The gallery unfolds like a contemplative space, where patterns repeat across engraved architectural forms, textiles, glass, and wallpaper, enveloping the visitor in a language
of visual rhythm and embrace. Archival videos thread through the installation, carrying gestures, voices, and memories forward as acts of preservation within a landscape of erasure. Some of these patterns are cultivated in petri dishes from the remnants of
Maqlouba, from foraged plants, soil, and other fragments of everyday life. In these contained microcosms, transformation, migration, and decay occur in parallel, creating a living metaphor for the shifting nature of culture and identity. The petri dish becomes
both container and containment, a quiet stage for cycles of preservation and loss. </span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">To look to the skies is to enact a gesture both intimate and universal: in prayer, in grief, screaming, in disbelief, in wonder. This pseudo-sanctuary invites contemplation
while also confronting the realities of exile, migration, and displacement, holding space for both refuge and
</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">unravelling.</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> The works here are steeped
in the tensions between comfort and disquiet, belonging and estrangement, sanctity and the secular. They carry the emotional weight of Palestinian life under colonial violence while offering a horizon, reminding us that wherever we are, we stand beneath the
same celestial canopy. Abu Zaineh invites an encounter where the culturally personal and the planetary, the grounded and the infinite, exist in fragile contradictions. </span></p>
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<p style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: black; background-color: white;"><i>i look to the skies</i> is presented in partnership with Mount Saint Vincent University Art
Gallery and was developed through an artist residency with Jude Abu Zaineh, organized by MSVU Art Gallery and curated by Melanie Colosimo. MSVU Art Gallery acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Arts Nova Scotia, and Halifax Regional
Municipality.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b>Jude Abu Zaineh</b> is a Palestinian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist-curator working across art, food, science,
and technology studies. Her work develops counter-archive practices and investigates themes of culture, displacement, storytelling, diaspora and belonging, through de-colonial and feminist perspectives. She examines ideals of home and community influenced
by her childhood and upbringing in Southwest Asia. She is the recipient of several awards, including the 2020 William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists. She has presented her works at Ireland Glass Biennale; Malta;Cultivamos Cultura, São
Luis, Portugal; Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, Lisbon, Portugal; Centro de Cultura Digital, Mexico City, Mexico; SVA, NYC; Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco; Art Gallery of Windsor; Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris, France; Museum of Glass,
Washington, and more. Her work has been featured in VICE Arabia, PBS, NPR, CBC, Canadian Art, NEUES GLAS-NEW GLASS: art & architecture magazines, and fuse: the Museum of Glass Magazine. Abu Zaineh’s works can be found in the permanent collections of The Museum
of Glass, Art Windsor-Essex, as well as private collections internationally. She received
</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she was an RPI Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences Fellow
and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellow, and
</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">an MFA from the University of Windsor. She maintains an active studio practice between upstate New York and southern Ontario.</span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The artist acknowledges the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.</span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b>Admit Everyone</b><br>
University of Waterloo Art Gallery<br>
East Campus Hall, Room 1239<br>
519.888.4567 ext. 33575<br>
</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u><a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-outlook-id="23e2ba83-8746-43ae-8747-c3c4ab5b0745" title="https://uwag.uwaterloo.ca/" class="OWAAutoLink" id="OWA0c04afd7-2a35-5508-ef03-346c9a31f927" href="https://uwag.uwaterloo.ca/">Website</a></u></span><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u><a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-outlook-id="58860e31-b3bb-4494-8fd5-e7f061e950d8" title="https://www.facebook.com/uwag.waterloo" class="OWAAutoLink" id="OWA571f8a30-4f8e-0dfa-e31d-26434295d61a" href="https://www.facebook.com/uwag.waterloo">Facebook</a></u></span><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u><a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-outlook-id="6f47c517-6245-4453-9df9-713d4dd9b55f" title="https://www.instagram.com/uwartgallery" class="OWAAutoLink" id="OWAd7a80e48-2b32-69ab-4b5a-aaf4053f5583" href="https://www.instagram.com/uwartgallery">Instagram</a></u></span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b>Contact</b><br>
Ivan Jurakic, Director/Curator<br>
</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u><a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" data-outlook-id="9060796e-cf8f-4d88-9a04-2f000ce1b1e4" title="mailto:ijurakic@uwaterloo.ca" class="OWAAutoLink" id="OWA1118c82c-7869-b182-3282-fe3712174363" href="mailto:ijurakic@uwaterloo.ca">ijurakic@uwaterloo.ca</a></u></span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b>Hours<br>
</b>Wednesday to Saturday 12 – 5pm<br>
Or by appointment</span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b>Mobility<br>
</b>Ground floor entry<br>
Automated doors available at west entrance to Fine Arts (ECH)<br>
Wide pathways<br>
Accessible washrooms on ground level</span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b>Driving<br>
</b>263 Phillip Street, Waterloo<br>
East Campus Hall (ECH) is located adjacent to Engineering 6 (E6)<br>
</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u><a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-outlook-id="f453c62f-2365-4ffe-8f9e-98afc97f6b78" title="https://uwaterloo.ca/map/" class="OWAAutoLink" id="OWAa2ed64ac-1958-309e-648d-cb5a9ae1a5c7" href="https://uwaterloo.ca/map/">Campus
map</a></u></span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b>Parking<br>
</b>Visitor Parking available in B Lot (E6) or Q Lot (EC1)<br>
Pay via AMP mobile app, $7.25 Flat Rate<br>
Search “AMP Park” in app store or scan QR code on parking signs<br>
</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u><a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-outlook-id="b8d2dcc6-a8e6-4041-8977-caa92ffcc8dc" title="https://uwaterloo.ca/map/" class="OWAAutoLink" id="OWA06c739d9-f6ce-c9ea-c200-812efc75e60b" href="https://uwaterloo.ca/map/">Campus
map</a></u></span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b>Mailing<br>
</b>University of Waterloo Art Gallery<br>
200 University Avenue West<br>
Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3G1</span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: black;"><img size="25964" style="width: 150px; max-width: 100%; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" width="150" id="x_id-A706FD29-4BF2-4D75-8F6E-9D838D055B8B" alt="UWAG logo_150px.jpg" data-outlook-trace="F:1|T:1" src="cid:A706FD29-4BF2-4D75-8F6E-9D838D055B8B"></span></p>
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<span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><b>Image Credits</b>: Jude Abu Zaineh,
<i>i look to the skies </i>(MSVU Gallery </span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(153, 153, 153); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">installation detail</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">),
2025, neon and mixed media. Photo: </span><span style="font-family: Aptos; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Michael Valiquette.
<b>Image </b></span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><b>Description</b>: A ribbon of blue neon accentuates the peak</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"> of
an A</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">rabesque
</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">architectural</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"> form perforated
with Islamic ornamental </span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">patterns</span><span style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">.</span></p>
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