Riham Isaac Artist

Home
United Kingdom
London
Riham Isaac Artist

Her work is playful and a profound commentary on a wide range of pressing issues related to gender, politics, and arts.

Riham Isaac is a performance artist and theatre maker who brings together a range of practices — acting, singing, dancing, video and explores new mediums of live performance and multidisciplinary arts. Riham's most recent project is a solo multimedia performance written and performed by her titled “Another Lover's Discourse ليه خلّتني أحبك” which was commissioned by Belfast International Arts Fest

ival and will be premiering and touring London/Belfast March 2022. More info here: https://www.rihamisaac.com/another-lovers-discourse

Riham's practice reflects on what it means to be producing innovative artistic work in Palestine in the current moment. Riham has extensive experience leading and creating artistic projects. In 2017 she co-directed The Alternativity with Oscar-winning Director Danny Boyle & Banksy which was featured as a programme on BBC2. In 2016 she directed & produced I Am You, a multidisciplinary performance that toured Palestine, Sweden & Denmark. In 2014 she performed during Qalandia International Biennale 'Stone on Road’. MA Graduate from Goldsmiths in Performance and lectures at Birzeit University and Bard College. She is also the Founder of ‘Art Salon’ which is an independent art space in the old city of Beit-Sahour.

05/06/2026

Archive, activism, imagination, and collective action ✊

Excited to be heading to Oulu in two weeks to facilitate a workshop at the IETM Plenary Meeting (15-18 June 2026).

For the past two years, I've been immersed in researching and assembling “a living album” of Palestinian cultural materials from the 1960s-1990s - posters, revolutionary poetry, songs, paintings, protest materials. Materials that continue to shape our imagination of Palestinian liberation, community, and resistance.

In Oulu, I'm inviting 25 artists, activists, researchers, and community builders to engage with this archive - not as observers, but as participants in collective resistance. We'll explore how archives become alive when we work with them: through voice, movement, writing, reflection. How contested materials can shift from observation to action. How we build communities that react and act together.

Workshop: From Archive to Activism: Embodied Practice as Collective Protest
📍 Wednesday 17 June | Morning | Oulu Central Library, Event Space Laituri
Sign-up is open 🔗 https://www.ietm.org/en/meetings/ietm-oulu-plenary-meeting-2026/sessions/from-archive-to-activism-embodied-practice-as
Capacity: 25 people | Booking required
Location: Oulu Central Library, Event Space Laituri

No prior experience needed - only curiosity about collective action and a willingness to engage imaginatively.

This workshop is part of IETM's Plenary theme "TIME FOR CHANGE" - exploring how we create, collaborate, and sustain our work in times of urgency.

More about IETM Oulu 2026: https://www.ietm.org/en/meetings/ietm-oulu-plenary-meeting-2026

See you in the nightless nights of Oulu! ✊

📸 Credit

22/12/2025

Closing this year feeling grounded, stretched, and deeply alive.

Exeter has been more than a place! It’s been a site of learning, resistance, practice, and becoming. Over the past year, I’ve moved through research, conversations, and collaborations that have reshaped how I work and how I stand in the world. I’ve spoken in rooms big and small, performed in different contexts, and opened my practice to new questions, urgencies, and possibilities.

Relocating is never easy. It asks you to let go, to witness versions of yourself you’ve outgrown, and to arrive — slowly — into something new.

What has made this year possible are the people, the friendships, the care, and the creative exchanges. New connections, new partnerships, and a growing sense of community that holds me, challenges me, and reminds me why I do this work.

This journey is far from over. I’m looking ahead to deeper collaborations, more community-building, and sharing more of what’s been growing quietly behind the scenes.

Leaving you with a few images of spaces that have held me this year — and the feelings that live inside them.

Onwards. Always.

✊🏽

04/11/2025

I’m honoured to be part of Stand with Palestinians: Messages from Gaza: An evening of art, testimony, and solidarity organised by White Kite Collective, taking place this Saturday, 8 November, at Stratford East.

🎟️ Get your tickets now … they’re going fast!

I’m thrilled to join my friends and colleagues in London, who have been tirelessly organising these powerful events to keep the voices of Gaza alive and raise funds for vital grassroots initiatives on the ground.

This is going to be an incredible lineup, and I’m performing alongside brilliant artists, poets, musicians, journalists, and activists, all standing in solidarity with Palestine and justice.

As many spaces continue to remain silent or withdraw support from Palestinian voices, gatherings like this are essential. They remind us of the power of collective witness and of the responsibility we share to keep the struggle alive and our voices alive.

This is not just a performance… it’s a call to action, a space for truth, resilience, and solidarity.

📍 Stratford East, London
 📅 Saturday, 8 November 2025
 🎟️ Tickets available through or : https://www.stratfordeast.com/whats-on/all-shows/stand-with-palestinians-messages-from-gaza

21/09/2025

This past week, I shared the beginnings of my research on the Palestinian archive as Embodied Practice, not only as history, but as a living practice.

For me, the archive is carried in our bodies, in performance, in the ways we remember and resist. Digging into it is not only about looking back, but about rehearsing liberation, imagining our worlds, and staying rooted in the present while opening pathways to the future.

As artists, when we enter the archive, we bring our voices, our mediums, our ways of sensing the world. In doing so, we stand alongside scholars, historians, politicians — but with a different urgency: the urgency of creation, of performance, of keeping the story of resistance alive.

I feel grateful and energised to be on this path, weaving land, memory, and liberation into practice. This feels like the beginning of something important, and the unfolding of a prolonged research journey in the years to come, guided by curiosity, passion, and the archives.

10/09/2025

I’m deeply honoured to be presenting at Archival Journeys: Reframing the Middle East Past and Future, hosted by DAME – Digital Archive of the Middle East at the University of Exeter.

This will be my first presentation as a scholar, where I’ll share the beginnings of my research on Palestinian archives. My talk, “The Palestinian Archive as Embodied Practice: From Assembly to Action,” explores how archives can become living, performative documents—moving from collection to creative action in times of crisis.

I’ll be part of the Revolutionary Archives panel on Wednesday, Sept 17 (10:30–12:00), alongside brilliant scholars and practitioners from the University of Toronto, Exeter, and CNRS Paris.

As an artist, activist, researcher, and now archivist, this feels like an important step in my journey of exploring how we perform land, memory, and resistance through archives.

I’m also really looking forward to taking part in the full programme, which promises to be incredibly rich and inspiring.

📍 Reed Hall, University of Exeter
📅 Sept 17–19, 2025
👉 Registration: [email protected]

🔗 Full programme: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/events/details/index.php?event=15128

27/08/2025

I can't believe it's been a year already since I started this transformative chapter of my life. 🌱

Reflecting on this first year of my PhD journey - meeting incredible new people, rooting deeper into my practice, exploring new dimensions of myself in academia and research. I've been looking at my art through a completely different lens, one that's deeply rooted in activism, my passion for multidisciplinary performance practices, and Palestine.

As I move towards my second year, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for everyone who has supported me along this path - my family, friends, colleagues, and all the beautiful communities I'm building and that surround me. You all keep me going and committed to this journey.

So much is coming up that I'm excited to share! Stay tuned for a conference I'll be part of in September about "Archival Journeys: Reframing the Middle East Past and Future" at the University of Exeter and much more planned for 2025-2026. My practice is developing in ways I'm still stretching to imagine, and I can't wait to see how it all manifests in the years to come.

This moment was captured during my residency at LaMama Umbria with the Lab - surrounded by the land, wearing my keffiyeh, feeling so anchored in this journey.

Thank you for capturing this rooted moment perfectly. 🌿

10/08/2025

The world seems darker and darker every day. We wake up to horrifying news and try to make sense of it. I get it—it’s too much. But if we all say it’s too much and choose not to act, we’ll wake up one day when it’s not even safe to leave our homes. We must resist passivity. We can’t pretend everything is okay. We need breaks, yes—but we must also hold accountable those responsible. You and I are not alone in this. 💪🏼💪🏼

For this week: educate yourself about a cause that moves you. Even if it’s not about my home country Palestine, there are so many injustices around the world—and they’re all rooted in the same system.

Yesterday was International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, a moment to honor Indigenous resistance, knowledge, and land stewardship. Today, I call for empathy, not just sympathy; action, not just reaction. Movements, not just words!

Think: what can you contribute with your knowledge and talents? We all want a better world—for ourselves and for the generations to come.

Free Palestine—and free humanity from greed, injustice, and capitalism!

Photo credit from Red line for Gaza protest organised by Saturday 2nd of August following there pages for more actions and protests 🇵🇸🇵🇸💪🏼💪🏼
⸻

10/07/2025

Encounters that stay with you 🪶🪶🪶

These photos beautifully capture the essence of a special time during my recent residency in Umbria-Italy... I’m still holding the tenderness of this time — the quiet sparks, the shared meals,the sunset times, the stories, the questions, the gestures that passed between us.

This residency in Italy brought together a community of artists whose practices are deeply rooted in the moment — in resistance, in memory, in presence. We met not only through our work but around tables, in long walks, in laughter, in silence. Something magical happens when artists meet like this — in vivid, alive spaces where the political and the poetic hold each other.

Italy, as always, gave a particular beauty to it all. It revived a part of me that longs for vivid encounters, for spaces that breathe with care, depth, and creative intimacy. I can’t quite get over it — and I’m excited to see how this journey of getting to know each other will continue to unfold.

Grateful to be part of this global community through

📸 Photos by the gifted Alessio Galdiolo — thank you for capturing us with such warmth.

04/06/2025

Last week I had the joy of being on a research trip to the incredible Shubbak Festival. the window to Arab contemporary arts.

It was a rich and powerful few days witnessing urgent, political, and moving work: from a stunning exhibition of Palestinian posters, to comics from Palestine and across the Arab world, to the deeply resonant play by my friend and brilliant playwright Ahmed Masoud Application 39.

I left feeling inspired, reflective, and full of gratitude for the many profound encounters — with artists, audiences, and the dedicated team behind this important festival.

This experience is part of my ongoing research about performance, land and activism. And I’m thankful to be supported by the Fellowship at Georgetown University for this research trip and for supporting me on different level in my current practice and research.

Address

London

Website

https://www.rihamisaac.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Riham Isaac Artist posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Want your establishment to be the top-listed Arts & Entertainment in London?