SPACES  |  June 10, 2025

SPACES presents Artists-in-Residence George Harb and Leila Khoury in A Single Word, alongside the final year of Cooking Sections: To Those Who Nourish.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Pita Brooks, Director of Operations

June 10, 2025 216.621.2314 ext. 202

pita@spacescle.org

WHAT: SPACES presents Artists-in-Residence George Harb and Leila Khoury in A Single Word, alongside the final year of Cooking Sections: To Those Who Nourish.

WHERE: SPACES 2900 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44113

WHEN: Public opening reception, Friday, June 27, 2025, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Exhibitions run Jun 27, 2025 - Aug 2, 2025

A Single Word: Tracing Joy and Resilience Across Generations

(Cleveland, OH) — June 9, 2025 — SPACES is proud to launch a new experiential residency and immersive installation by artists George Harb and Leila Khoury. Their residency began on May 5, 2025, and will culminate in the debut of A Single Word, a gallery-wide installation opening June 27. Join us for our first public reception of the year as we celebrate the artists and the vibrant SPACES community.

Describing their collaborative exhibition, the artists write the following:

Our journey is not only of survival, but of unbroken continuity.

Interwoven across the gallery walls are a collage of George Harb’s family videos and photographs taken in diaspora, his ancestral lands of Ramallah and Jerusalem, and widely across various parts of Palestine between 1900-1990. This intimate archive illuminates generations of Palestinian life through an extensive documentation of childhood, celebrations, rites of passage, and his family’s intuitive relationship with and stewardship of their land.

Through the medium of archiving, A Single Word offers evidence of Palestinian joy, dignity, and interiority as everyday birthrights that carry on into the present moment. Their narratives are not shaped by the external forces of occupation—they hold within them inner universes that have persisted across generations, in spite of trauma. As long as there are Palestinians in this world—and there always will be—their joy will remain unbroken, enduring, and palpable.

Harb and Khoury invite audiences to further immerse themselves in Harb’s family history and Palestinian culture at large through a screening of restored home videos, a curated collection of reading material, and the artists’ scenic recreation of a Palestinian reading room.

About the Artists

George Harb (He/Him) is an artist, digital archivist, and community historian based in Cleveland, Ohio. Harb’s disciplinary focus is on preserving Arab American and Palestinian American narratives. Specializing in digitizing and revitalizing historical archives, he makes these cultural stories accessible for future generations, emphasizes the importance of documenting and safeguarding Palestinian history, and ensures that these histories are protected from erasure.

Harb founded Zaman Project, an initiative rooted in his family's personal archives that preserves and shares Palestinian American identity. Additionally, Harb has curated exhibits that highlight the significance of cultural and historical heritage, while also contributing to various other Palestinian preservation initiatives. In 2023, he founded Palestinian American Heritage Society, which focuses on the development of the Palestinian Cultural Garden of Cleveland, a space dedicated to celebrating the Palestinian diasporic contributions and ancestral roots.

Leila Khoury (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist who visualizes the connections between placemaking, the built environment, and community histories through a multifaceted practice in sculpture, scenic and architectural design, printed matter, and storytelling.

Khoury’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in Cleveland and Columbus, OH; New York City and Troy, NY; Chicago, IL; Baltimore, MD; Washington, D.C.; Pittsburgh, PA; Waukesha, WI; and Subhan, Kuwait. She was recently awarded the 2025 Artist Residency at the Arab American National Museum, the 2024-2025 PROOF Fellowship at Zygote Press, and the 2024 Creative Impact Fund. In 2018, two sculptures by Khoury were featured in the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ exhibition series, Women to Watch.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity Restore.

About ReStore:

The ReStore is more than a home improvement store—it’s a mission in action. Offering new and gently used home goods, building materials, and furniture at affordable prices, the ReStore helps shoppers save money while supporting sustainability and community impact. Every purchase reduces landfill waste and directly supports Habitat for Humanity’s efforts to help local families achieve safe, affordable homeownership.

SPACES Marks the Completion of To Those Who Nourish, a Landmark Three Year Sustainability Project by Artist Duo Cooking Sections

(Cleveland, OH) — June 9, 2025 — SPACES is proud to announce the culminating exhibition of To Those Who Nourish, a three-year environmental sustainability and socially engaged art initiative developed in partnership with UK-based artist duo Cooking Sections (Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe). The exhibition opens June 27, 2025, and a day-long public expo is scheduled for August 16, 2025 —a celebratory event centered around art, sustainable agriculture, and climate justice.

Founded in 1978, SPACES has long served as a platform for experimental artists whose work engages with pressing social and environmental issues. To Those Who Nourish exemplifies this mission by uniting contemporary art and ecological action to confront agricultural runoff and its devastating impact on Lake Erie.

Supported by generous funding from the Teiger Foundation, SPACES has partnered over the past three years with six regional farms: Chateau Hough, City Fresh, Yellow House Cheese & Meats, Living City Farms, Vel’s Purple Oasis, and Hood Honey. This final phase of the project highlights the vital contributions of these farms through a focused exhibition at SPACES, showcasing collaborative efforts to adopt phosphorus-free, regenerative farming practices. These methods reduce harmful runoff into Lake Erie, mitigating toxic algae blooms and hypoxic “dead zones” caused by conventional fertilizers.

First launched during the 2022 FRONT International Triennial, To Those Who Nourish began with Cooking Sections’ installation of two symbolic oxygenating fountains on Lake Erie—an evocative call to action underscoring the urgent need to address phosphorus pollution at its source. Since then, SPACES has led a multi-phase, community-centered initiative to elevate local farmers and support sustainable food systems.

Renowned for their ongoing CLIMAVORE project and nominated for the 2021 Turner Prize, Cooking Sections use food systems to examine the ecological and geopolitical forces shaping our world. Though their work has appeared in major exhibitions globally, To Those Who Nourish marks their first project in the Great Lakes region.

The exhibition will remain on view through August 16, 2025, accompanied by ongoing public programming.

Save the Date:
SPACES Community Expo
Saturday, August 16, 2025 | 12:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Join us for a day of shared learning, artisan + farm sales, and artist talks.

About SPACES

SPACES is a nonprofit alternative art organization in Cleveland, OH, dedicated to supporting artists who explore and experiment. Since 1978, SPACES has commissioned and presented ambitious projects by artists-in-residence working across all media. The organization provides vital resources to cultural producers and offers an inclusive, welcoming space for audiences to engage with bold, experimental ideas.

Major support for SPACES comes from Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Beyer Family Foundation, the Cleveland Foundation, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, The Flagstar Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, Nord Family Foundation, Ohio Arts Council, The Teiger Foundation, and The Joyce Foundation.

#Press release, images, and caption info may be downloaded here.