GEMAAL OP ZUIDProgramma
LLL #4
by:Leana Boven
Leana Boven (b. 1993, Paramaribo) is a curator, programme maker, writer, and researcher with a background in gender- and postcolonial theory. Her work centers on counterculture, diasporic connectedness and the feeling of belonging, spatial justice, ecology and decolonial climate justice, and collective care.
Leana curated her first exhibition, On Collective Care & Togetherness, at MAMA in Rotterdam in 2020, and has since organized multiple exhibitions and programs. She worked as a curator at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons for several years, and currently works as a curator at Stroom Den Haag, where she curated the exhibitions Positions: Soft Intimacies (2024) and Beloved Waters (2025). She is also a curator at Gemaal op Zuid in Rotterdam, where, together with Yusser al Obaidi, she organized the exhibition series Spiritual Disobedience (2025) and Love, Labour, Liberate (2024). Leana has taught at the Willem de Kooning Academy in the Social Practice department and is currently a tutor in Social Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven. In addition to her teaching, Leana regularly writes for platforms such as Metropolis M and is a board member at No Limits! Art Castle.
Love, Labour, Liberate! #4 Remove the Dot by Saja Amro and Wassila Abboud
“The only way we can imagine liberation is to center the voices of those at the forefront of the liberation struggle, those who have dared to dream—our political prisoners and our martyrs.”
Gemaal op Zuid proudly presents “Remove the Dot” by @sajaamr and @wassila_ as part of the exhibition series curated by Yusser al Obaidi and Leana Boven: Love, Labour Liberate. The work “Remove the Dot” explores the concept of martyrdom [شهادة] and the commitment to sacrifice for a land, showing how a commitment to liberation requires a rationality incomprehensible from within Western frameworks. Saja Amro and Wassila Abboud’s ongoing collaboration centers the frameworks of sensing and meaning that emerge from contexts of oppression and revolution, specifically for them from the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance.
Taking guidance from the voices of past and present prisoners and martyrs invites us to linger in spaces of imagination that do not lead to dead metaphors but instead work to keep our dead alive. This series derives its name from Zakaria Zubeidi, a political prisoner who, along with five others, attempted to liberate themselves from the high-security Israeli prison, Gilboa. Zakaria Zubeidi was arrested before he could complete his thesis. In a call with his lawyer, he asked her to remove the dot from the final paragraph he had written, symbolizing his wish for the story and the cultivation of knowledge to continue until liberation. His literal words translate to “Remove the Dot.”
“The only way we can imagine liberation is to center the voices of those at the forefront of the liberation struggle, those who have dared to dream—our political prisoners and our martyrs.”
Gemaal op Zuid proudly presents “Remove the Dot” by @sajaamr and @wassila_ as part of the exhibition series curated by Yusser al Obaidi and Leana Boven: Love, Labour Liberate. The work “Remove the Dot” explores the concept of martyrdom [شهادة] and the commitment to sacrifice for a land, showing how a commitment to liberation requires a rationality incomprehensible from within Western frameworks. Saja Amro and Wassila Abboud’s ongoing collaboration centers the frameworks of sensing and meaning that emerge from contexts of oppression and revolution, specifically for them from the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance.
Taking guidance from the voices of past and present prisoners and martyrs invites us to linger in spaces of imagination that do not lead to dead metaphors but instead work to keep our dead alive. This series derives its name from Zakaria Zubeidi, a political prisoner who, along with five others, attempted to liberate themselves from the high-security Israeli prison, Gilboa. Zakaria Zubeidi was arrested before he could complete his thesis. In a call with his lawyer, he asked her to remove the dot from the final paragraph he had written, symbolizing his wish for the story and the cultivation of knowledge to continue until liberation. His literal words translate to “Remove the Dot.”