RIHLA: what does home mean?
RIHLA – the Arabic word for ‘journey’ – is an artistic project by Ahmed Saleh that explores themes of exile and identity and transcends borders. For the latest edition of the literary programme, Asmaa Azaizeh and Rasha Hilwi, two Palestinian writers, will jointly deliver a performance in which they give shape to their experiences after they left their home.
A co-production with Espace Magh
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NOT A HOUSE OF BRICKS AND MORTAR
Asmaa Azaizeh and Rasha Hilwi, very close friends who left their homeland Palestine, and currently live in Amsterdam and London. Through an audio visual performance on the stage in Brussels, they share recent letters, exploring friendship as a home, alongside immigration, motherhood, and the aftermath of genocide in their homeland.
Throughout reconstructing memory and shared life, they question whether friendship can compensate for the loss of their former selves, their loved ones and their city of Haifa, the city of their artistic and political birth.
home
RIHLA is the brainchild of the Gazan poet Ahmed Saleh. Based in Brussels since 2023, Saleh works at Passa Porta. It was there that he founded his artistic project. In the autumn of 2025, the first issue of RIHLA Magazine was published and two successful literary evenings were held. In the spring of 2026, a new issue of RIHLA will be published with ‘home’ as its theme and the performance by Asmaa Azaizeh and Rasha Hilwi will be staged in Brussels and Antwerp. More info at www.rihla.be.
about the artists
Asmaa Azaizeh is a Palestinian poet and author who currently works from London. She has written four collections of poetry, including her debut Liwa, which won the Al Qattan Foundation prize for best debut in 2010. Don’t Believe Me If I Talk to You of War (2018) has been translated into Dutch, Swedish and French and performed through an audio visual show which toured in several festival such as Avignion theatre festival. In 2024 her first memoir was published, A Year of Small Museums.
Rasha Hilwi is a Palestinian writer, journalist and storyteller from Akka. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and anthropology from the University of Haifa and has worked as, among other things, a radio producer and editor of the online newspaper Raseef22. Her work has appeared in Arabic newspapers, magazines and on online platforms. Some of her texts have been translated into English and Dutch. Hilwi now lives and works in Amsterdam, where she rediscovered her love of storytelling, performing and writing. Her first non-fiction book in Arabic, about motherhood and home, will be published this summer by Khan Aljanub in Berlin.
about the curator
Ahmed Saleh is a Palestinian writer, poet and activist from Gaza. He lives in Brussels. He studied political science and business administration and writes about literature, politics, identity and memory, with a particular focus on themes such as displacement and alienation based on his personal experiences of living under siege and in exile. As a writer, he has been awarded numerous artistic residencies and participated in many literary evenings and festivals, and as an activist he has collaborated with cultural and human rights institutions. He has written critical and reflective essays on the political and psychological complexities of exile. He has published a collection of poetry and is working on a second one.
pictures: asmaa azaizeh © dirk skiba, rasha hilwi © ana mendes
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Soon at Passa Porta
