Mays Albaik is a Palestinian artist with an interdisciplinary visual practice triangulating body, language, and place. Crystalizing as performance, video, sculpture, and installations, her work layers a personal poetics onto the sociopolitics that define relationships to geography; looking for moments of mediated as well as immediate contact between place, body and language. 


EXHIBITIONS&PROGRAMS


Evaporating Suns, KBH.G Foundation, Basel, Switzerland 2024

Geopoetics of the UAE,
UAE Embassy, Brussels, Belgium 2023

Richard Mille Art Prize: Time, Memory, Territory,
Louvre Abu Dhabi, UAE 2022

Portrait of a Nation,
Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Curated by Maya Khalil 2022

Abu Dhabi Art Performance Program,
Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Curated by Rose Lejeune. 2022

Zemanna,
Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Curated by Dirwaza Curatorial Lab 2021

Artist Residency,
Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi, UAE 2021

Postcolonial Ecologies Online Residency,
Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan. Curated by Firas Shehadeh,
Joud Al-Tamimi, Reem Marji 2021

A Terranean Love Note
[Solo], Tashkeel, Dubai, UAE
With the mentorship of Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Ala Younis 2021

Night & Refuge II: Collaborative Live Writing Event,
with Caroline Bergvall 2020

Night & Refuge I: Collaborative Live Writing Event,
with Caroline Bergvall 2020

How to Maneuver: Shapeshifting Texts and Other Publishing Tactics,
421 Arts Campus. Curated by
Maha Maamoun and Ala Younis (Kayfa ta-). 2019

Qala 3,
Darat AlFunun, Amman, Jordan. Curated by Walid AlWawi 2019

Related Non-Objects,
47 Rathbone, Providence, RI 2019

Graduate Thesis Show,
Providence Convention Center, Providence, RI 2019

It Should Be Clear,
Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence, RI 2019

___Scapes,
Gelman Gallery, Providence, RI 2019

Glass Triennial,
Woods Gerry Gallery, Providence, RI 2018

Before We Were Banned,
East of West, Santa Fe, NM 2018

Sawt 2a,
Grey Noise Gallery, Dubai, UAE 2018

Sawt,
Satellite Gallery, Dubai, UAE 2018

Listening Within Sonorous Symmetry,
samtsamtsamt Online Gallery, curated by Areej Kaoud 2018

Before We Were Banned,
ArtHelix, Brooklyn, NY 2017

Mind the Gap,
Tashkeel, Dubai, UAE. Curated by Jack Thomas Taylor 2017

Change Coordinates + Someone Else,
Design House 16, 1971 Design Space, Sharjah, UAE. Curated by Mobius Studio. 2016-2017

Sheikha Manal Young Artists Award Finalists Exhibition,
Dubai, UAE. [+exhibition catalog] 2016

Sikka Art Fair,
Dubai, UAE. Curated by  Mattar Bin Lahej. [+exhibition catalog] 2016

Art: Processes and Practices,
Warehouse 411, Abu Dhabi, UAE. [+exhibition catalog] 2016

Found,
Tashkeel, Dubai. UAE. Curated by Hazem Harb 2015

Opus 6,
Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah. UAE 2014
Stillness Within Collective Spaces, Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennale x Dirwaza Curatorial Lab Talks 2025

Panel: Sustaining Communities, The Alley, MiZa, Abu Dhabi, UAE 2025

Panel: You Don’t Need Art School! Jameel Art Center, Dubai, UAE 2024

Arts Chat, NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, Abu Dhabi, UAE 2023

Khosh Bosh Podcast, Guest Speaker 2023

Panel: Reclaiming/Reimagining Home: Exploring Notions of Belonging, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE 2022

In the Studio, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE 2021

Khosh Bosh Podcast, Guest Speaker 2021

Artist Talk, Rhode Island School of Design, Degree Program Workshop 2021

Artist Talk, NYU Abu Dhabi, Today We Wrote Nothing 2021

A Terranean Love Note: Nadine Khalil with Mays Albaik, Tashkeel, Dubai 2021

Jabir Ibn Hayyan and Contemporary Art Practice, Rhode Island School of Design, Alchemy Research Studio 2020

Speak, Elsewhere, Online Artist Talk, Sarah Al Mehairi Artist Talks 2020

Contextualizing Diasporic Visual practices Through a Lens of Comparative Analysis of Palestinian Literature. Conference Paper Presentation.  Session: Word And Image in the Studio Practice, International Association of Word and Image Studies. College Art Association Annual Conference 2020 2020

How to Make a Human: A recipe, Gelman Gallery, Providence, RI 2019

For Context, Rhode Island School of Design, Degree Program Workshop 2019

Artist Talk, RISD Grad Exchange, Providence, RI 2019

How to Make a Human: A recipe,  Joy & Dissent, AS220, Providence, RI 2019

Forum: Change Coordinates + Someone Else, Design House 16, 1971 Design Space, Sharjah, UAE 2017

Artists & Materiality, NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, Abu Dhabi, UAE 2016

Commencement Valedictory Address, American University Of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE 2014


PUBLICATIONS

Planetary Palestine: A Living Textile in Excess, Future Perfect: Catastrophe and The Contemporary. Publisher: Kaph Books. 2023

The Sculptural Process of Language, Machi Mashi Publication, edited by Engy Mohsen & Soukaina Joual 2022

Letters of Ailment, Mizna Magazine, Experimental Issue. USA. 2022

On Artists and Institutional Stigma, K-oh-llective, republished in Postscript Magazine, Hiatus Issue 2021

Of Jasmines and a Vague Hunger, On Foraging: Food Knowledge and Environmental Imaginaries in the UAE's Landscape.
Publisher: Kaph Books. 2021

Letters of Ailment, A Terranean Love Note Catalogue. Tashkeel, Dubai. 2021

Negative Space, A Dance Mag, Beirut, Lebanon. 2019

How to Make a Human: A Recipe, RISD XYZ, Summer–Fall edition. 2019

Negative Space, v.1 Student Publication, RISD, Providence, RI. 2018

Little Ambassadors: a Study of Visual Storytelling in Museum Education, Design House 16 “Change Coordinates + Someone Else” Exhibition Catalog, 1971 Design Space, Sharjah. UAE. 2017

C For Celestial, “E11”, Center For Architectural Discourse. 2016

An Ode to the Construction Worker, “The National, Arts & Culture”, Dubai, UAE. 2016

We All Sweat the Same, “The Outpost Magazine”, Beirut. 2015

A Rooftop Phone Call, “The National”, Abu Dhabi. [Runner-up for Abu Dhabi Book Fair Short Story Award] 2014





REVIEWS&INTERVIEWS

Between Placehoods by Dana Dawud. Exhibition Review, Canvas Magazine, The Future is Bright.

Journey to Inner Space by Ayesha S. Shehmir, Harper Bazar Arabia Art Book: Dubai.

A Liberating Approach to Practice (Artist Profile) by Robert Albanese, Rhode Island School of Design, Graduate Study Website.

One to Watch: Mays Albeik (Artist Profile) by Anya Stafford, Selections Art: Culture from the Arab World and Beyond, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.


SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT