From 14 November, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam will be presenting new work by the Palestinian artist Susanne Khalil Yusef (1984). On 10 October 2023, the museum acquired Yusef’s work نعيش (We Want to Live) for its collection. A statement, which made Stedelijk Museum Schiedam one of the first museums in the Netherlands to speak out against the immense and decades-long injustice done to Palestinians. Yusef has now been invited to create a new artwork for one of the museum’s attic spaces. To realise this, she is collaborating with the sizeable Palestinian community in the region of Schiedam and Vlaardingen.
Susanne Khalil Yusef, We Want to Live, 2021, neon, Collection of Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, purchased with support from the Mondriaan Fund, photo by Aad Hoogendoorn.
In 2021, Susanne Khalil Yusef had a blown glass version made of an Arabic text in the handwriting of a good friend of hers from Gaza. The words mean ‘We want to live’, a phrase frequently exchanged between Yusef and her friends whenever they are discussing the atrocities the Palestinians are being subjected to, and which have been going on for decades. Susanne Khalil Yusef’s own family were violently driven out of the city of Jaffa in 1948. Through her work she aims to shed light on the position of Palestinians who are scattered around the world and live in a wide variety of multi-generational diasporic communities. Stedelijk Museum Schiedam acquired the work on October 10th, 2023, thereby taking a strong stance against the enormous suffering in Gaza. The sculpture has since been exhibited in the stairwell of Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. Unfortunately, the work is just as relevant today as it was three years ago. Yusef’s blown glass words remind us of the importance of not looking away. All human beings have the right to live.
For her 2026 attic presentation, Yusef will create a new artwork, inspired by conversations and co-creation sessions with members of the Palestinian community in the region of Schiedam and Vlaardingen. The Palestinian community in this region is quite large because in 1963 fifty migrant workers from the city of Nablus, on the West Bank, were hired to work at the Romi margarine factory in Vlaardingen. In 1967, the Six-Day War led to the Israeli occupation of their land, making a return to their homes impossible. Out of necessity, the workers then brought their families to the Netherlands. This led to the development of a Palestinian community in Vlaardingen and its surroundings; a community that still lives there to this day.
Co-creation session at Museum Vlaardingen, 2026, photo by Ahmad (Photo’s Master Studio)
This exhibition is part of ArtBase, a pilot programme exploring the importance of the visual arts in various Dutch regional areas. ArtBase is made possible by the Mondriaan Fund.
Header image: Susanne Khalil Yusef, ‘We Want to Live’, 2021, photo by Aad Hoogendoorn