Diana AL-Halabi biography

Exhibitions

2025 ART Rotterdam– Prospects, Mondriaan Fonds, Rotterdam

2025 Something Else Symposium – Darb1718, Cairo

2024 Tashweesh – Beursschouwberg, Brussels

2024 “Wild Summer” – Brutus, Rotterdam

2023 “The Politics of the Armed Lifeboat” – exhibition, Radius CCA, Delft

2023 “At The Table” – group exhibition, Garage, Rotterdam

2023 “Tashattot” – group exhibition, Kiosk, Ghent

2022 “Chewing with Political Teeth” – solo exhibition, Gemaal op Zuid, Rotterdam

2022 “The Disaster Cannot Be Contained” – Over Het IJ Festival, Amsterdam

2022 “C-Veto” – group exhibition, Mistral, Amsterdam

2021 Material Context – Piet Zwart Graduation show, Het Archief, Rotterdam

2021 Print & Play in collaboration with Boijmans Museum, online

2021 ArteEast trilogy exhibition, online

2020 “Aspect Ratio” – Galerie De Jaloezie , FilmHuiskamer, Rotterdam

2020 “Delivered Home with No Eye Contact” – Growing space, solo exhibition,

Rotterdam

2020 Open Studios, Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam

2018 Open Studios, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut

2016 Salon d’Automne , Sursock Museum, Beirut

Film Festivals & Screenings

“The Battle of Empty Stomachs” 2024 | World premiere IFFR / Raindance Film Festival, (UK Premiere), MAO, (Torino), BlackStar Film Festival, (USA Premier), Roffa Mon Amour, (Rotterdam), Kraljevski Film Festival (Serbia), San Giò Verona Video Festival (Italy)/ Tashweesh Beursschouwburg (Brussels), Tronto Arab Film Festival (Toronto).

“The Disaster Cannot Be Contained” 2022-2024 | “The Disaster Cannot Be Contained” – Kunstinstituut Melly (Rotterdam), Fetfilm Film Festival (Stockhom), Brutus (Rotterdam), IFFR world premier(Rotterdam), Toronto Arab Film Festival, Morocco International Short Film Festival (Morocco), Off-Screen, Best short film Award for the national competition in Beirut Shorts Film Festival (Beirut).

“Aspect Ratio” 2022 | Cairo Video Festival (Cairo), Shasha Movies: Women’s Revolt program (Online).

Diana Al-Halabi

Artist | Filmmaker

Born in Lebanon in 1990, Diana Al-Halabi is a Rotterdam-based interdisciplinary artist predominantly working with film and painting. 

Through an intersectional feminist lens, her practice navigates the entanglement of the personal and the political, challenging top-down structures of power — from the patriarchal gaze and institutional violence to bureaucracy, settler colonialism, migration, and visa regimes. Her recent research, "Famine and Hunger Strikes: Decolonizing the Digestive System," explores the politicization of the digestive system as a form of bottom-up resistance.

Al-Halabi’s work spans film and painting, with her 2022 film, "The Disaster Cannot Be Contained," screening at international festivals, including IFFR, and winning Best Short Film in the national competition at the Beirut Shorts International Film Festival. In 2023, she received the IFFR RTM PITCH Award for her short film "The Battle of Empty Stomachs," which premiered at IFFR 2024, Raindance Film Festival (UK), and Blackstar Film Festival (USA).

Al-Halabi holds an MFA from the Piet Zwart Institute (2021) in Rotterdam and completed a fellowship at Ashkal Alwan's Homework Space Program (2018) in Beirut. Her work has been exhibited at Darb 1718 (Cairo), MAO Museum (Torino), Radius CCA (Delft), Garage (Rotterdam), Kiosk (Ghent), Sursock Museum (Beirut), and more. Her practice has been supported by CBK Rotterdam and the Mondriaan Fund.

Art Residencies

RIB - Summer Lab Residency, "The Vertical and Its Reverse" | August 2022

Performances

"The Last Supper or a Class In History" Performance at IDFA Film Festival | November 2021

"Holding Palestine" 7 days performance at PZI | June 2021

Awards

IFFR RTM PITCH AWARD for the production of "The Battle of Empty Stomachs" short film. | May 2023.

Symbio Jury Honorable mention- Oerol Festival - Project "Do We Eat For Granted?" | 2022

Grants/Scholarships

Mondrian Fonds, Artist Start | 2023

CBK, O&O (Research and Development grant) | 2022

Van Beek - Donner Stichting | 2020

Schuurman Schimmel  - Van Ouderen Stichting | 2020                       

Bekker -la Bastide -Fonds | 2020

Al Mawred (Culture resource) | 2020

Sultan Al Qassimi (Barjeel Art Foundation) | 2019-2020

Holland Scholarship | 2019

Philipe Jabre Scholarship | 2019

APEAL scholarship | 2019

Ashkal Alwan support grant | 2019

(A very sincere appreciation to all the foundations above that supported my studies, and very warm gratitude to the individuals who privately helped finance  my masters in the Netherlands)

Jury

2024 | Jury member at the Arab Film Festival Rotterdam

2023 |International Jury at Mostra De Valencia Film Festival- Cinema del Mediterrani Competition

Lectures/ Guest Speaker

Guest speaker at VU University- Amsterdam | January 2023

New Radicalisms - Strategies of urgencies, Panel talk, Rotterdam | July 2022

Berlin Korrespondenzen- Break Out, Panel discussion, Gorki Theater, Berlin | June 2022

Guest speaker at VU University- Amsterdam | January 2022

Guest Lecturer at WDKA University- Rotterdam | October 2021

Guest Lecturer at WDKA University- Rotterdam | March 2021

Workshops

Filmmaking workshop – IFFR x Delfshaven Public Library | May 2024

"Living Crisis from a Distance" – Amsterdam Museum | October 2023

"Living Crisis from a Distance" – Tapestry Making for the earthquake relief fund for Turkey and Syria- Melly & fundraised at Het Nieuwe Instituut | March 2023

The Mental Over-Stretch: Living Crisis from a Distance#1 - Kunst Instituut Melly- Rotterdam | March 2021

The Mental Over-Stretch: Living Crisis from a Distance#2 - Kunst Instituut Melly- Rotterdam | April 2021

The Mental Over-Stretch: Living Crisis from a Distance#3- Kunst Instituut Melly- Rotterdam | April 2021

Education

Masters in Fine Arts at Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands | 2021

Fellow resident at Ashkal Alwan Homework Space Program, Beirut, Lebanon | 2018

Bachelor in Interior Architecture at The  Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon | 2011

Press/Interviews