Nour Bishouty is a multidisciplinary artist working across video, sculpture, works on paper, digital images, and writing. Broadly concerned with gaps in archival memory and the Western production of knowledge and fantasy, her practice explores notions of articulation, permission, and the generative possibilities of misunderstanding.
Bishouty’s work has been exhibited internationally including at Museo Universitario del Chopo (2026), Mexico City; Liverpool Biennial (2025); Cooper Cole, Toronto (2025); Art Jameel, Jeddah (2024), La biennale de Québec (2024); Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, Toronto (2022); GTA21 Triennial, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto (2021); Darat Al Funun, Amman (2017); Casa Arabe, Madrid (2016); Access Gallery, Vancouver (2015); the Mosaic Rooms, London (2015); and the Beirut Art Centre, Beirut (2014).
Her artist books include “1—130: Selected works Ghassan Bishouty b. 1941 Safad, Palestine — d. 2004 Amman, Jordan” (2020), edited by Jacob Korczynski and co-published by Art Metropole and Motto Books; and “731.52 cm of land” (2025), published by Art Metropole in conjunction with Liverpool Biennial. She currently teaches at University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design.
She is represented by Cooper Cole, Toronto
info@coopercolegallery.com
mail@nourbishouty.com
Publications & Artist Books
2025 731.52 cm of land, Bishouty, Nour. Art Metropole, Toronto, Canada, in collaboration with Liverpool Biennial and Gallery 44
2025 Bishouty, N., & Sanader, D. Two figures in patchwork clothing move forward via camel, Archive Stories
2024 A Distortion of a Distortion: Nour Bishouty in conversation with Daniella Sanader, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas (ADVA)
2024 Cento, Ed. Dani Neira, Open Space and Moniker Press, Victoria, Canada
2024 SNAPLINE 2023.3: Family, Society of Northern Alberta Print-Artists (SNAP), Edmonton, Canada (commissioned print edition)
2020 1—130 Selected works, Ghassan Bishouty, b. 1941 Safad, Palestine – d. 2004 Amman, Jordan, Bishouty, Nour. Ed. Jacob Korczynski. Art Metropole, Toronto, Canada and Motto Books, Berlin, Germany
2016 Twenty-Three Days at Sea, Artist Logbook, Bishouty, Nour. Access Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
Solo & Two-person Exhibitions
2027 (forthcoming) Art Gallery of Burlington, Burlington, Canada
2026 Unlikely Mother, Museo Universitario del Chopo, UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico - Curator: Miguel Lopez
2025 In Between the Verses Winging From Hill to Hill, All Was Utterly Silent (performance), with Adrian Schindler, Bulegoa z/b, Bilbao, Spain
2025 Rock Paper Scissors, Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada
2024 Notes for a Guest Book, Ace Hotel & Images Festival, Toronto, Canada - Curator: Jaclyn Quaresma
2023 Shepherded towards a yellowish field, TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto Palestine Film Festival, Toronto, Canada - Curator: Amanda Boulos
2022 Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had, Gallery 44, Toronto, Canada - Curators: Toleen Touq, Lillian O’Brian Davis
2022 Visiting Artist Residency series, Open Studio, Toronto, Canada
2017 Adraa Samar, The Lab at Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan - Curator: Rana Beiruti
2014 Instead of a Resolution, Herter Gallery, Amherst, United States
Group Exhibitions
2025 BEDROCK, Liverpool Biennial 2025, Liverpool, United Kingdom - Curator: Marie-Anne McQuay
2024 On the count of three, Cat’s Cradle, Nuit Blanche, Toronto, Canada - Curator: Danica Pinteric
2024 Salt-Kissed: Of Vessels That Have Sailed The Red Sea, Art Jameel, Saudi Arabia
2024 Les forces du sommeil, La Biennale de Québec – Manif d’art, Québec City, Canada - Curator: Marie Muracciole
2024 Gravity Model, Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada
2024 How to Time Travel, MMAG Foundation, Amman, Jordan - Curator: Rana Beiruti
2023 Writing Mountains / Entre les lignes, Galerie d’art Stewart Hall, Pointe-Claire, Canada - Curator: Manel Benchabane
2022 I am land that remembers, ArtworxTO, Union Station, Toronto, Canada - Curator: Maya Wilson-Sanchez
2021 GTA21 Triennial, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada - Curators: Daisy Desrosiers, November Paynter, Rui Mateus Amaral
2021 New Acquisitions, Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, Canada - Curator: Jenifer Cane
2020 From Sun to Cement, Herter Gallery, Amherst, United States - Curators: Laylah Ali, Francis Christopher Oakley, Emma Chubb, Ajay Sinha
2016 Twenty-Three Days at Sea, Niagara Artists Centre, St. Catharines, Canada - Curator: Kimberly Phillips
2016 I Spy With My Little Eye, Casa Árabe, Córdoba and Madrid, Spain - Curators: Sam Bardaouil, Till Fellrath
2015 I Spy With My Little Eye, The Mosaic Rooms, London, United Kingdom
2015 Setups / Situations / Institutions, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, Lebanon
2014 Exposure: Under Construction, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon - Curator: Marie Muracciole
Art Fairs
2025 Art Toronto, with Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada
Bibliography
Critical Writing & Press
2025 Nour Bishouty: Rock Paper Scissors. Solo exhibition press listing on ArtViewer for COOPER COLE, Toronto, March 21 – April 26, 2025. [External Link]
2024 Tammer El-Sheikh, “Planes, Trains and Car Bombs: Departures from the Adjectival Orient,”Esse, Issue 111: Tourism. [PDF]
2024 Daniella Sanader, “A Distortion of a Distortion: Nour Bishouty,” Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas (ADVA).
2024 Manif d’art 11, “Nour Bishouty,” Universes.art (Manif d’art 11 – La biennale de Québec). [External Link]
2023 Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross, “Unsettled and softened: A Conversation with Nour Bishouty,” The Capilano Review, Summer. [External Link]
2022 Nour Bishouty in Conversation with Leyla El Sayed Hussein: 1–130 | Discussion and Library Intervention. Public conversation and library installation at the Beirut Art Center Library, Beirut Art Center, April 20, 2022. [External Link]
2022 Maia Asshaq, “An Index of the Unseen,” Tank Magazine, February.[External Link]
2021 Greater Toronto Art 2021 (GTA21). e-flux (announcement for Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto exhibition). [External Link]
2021 Daniella Sanader, “Nour Bishouty’s 1—130: Selected Works Ghassan Bishouty b. 1941 Safad, Palestine — d. 2004 Amman, Jordan,” The Brooklyn Rail, September. [External Link]
2021 Kareem Estefan, “A Gathering Place for Objects that Have No Place,” The Journal of Visual Culture: The Palestine Portfolio. [External Link]
2021 Karie Liao, “Observing the Changing Same: MOCA Toronto’s GTA21 Triennial,” Vie des Arts, November. [External Link]
2021 November Paynter and Nour Bishouty, “In conversation,” GTA21: Toronto’s Most Exciting Contemporary Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, pp. 124–129.
2021 Reyhan Yazdani, “1—130 Nour Bishouty,” C Magazine, September. [External Link]
2016 Jaclyn Bruneau, “Twenty-Three Days at Sea,” Canadian Art.
2015 “ فنانون جدد في متاهة المدينة والذاكرة والجسد” Rawan Ezzedine, Al-Akhbar Newspaper
2015 India Stoughton, “Exposing what it means to build,” The Daily Star Lebanon, January.
Exhibition Texts
2026 Mirene Arsanios, “Moether,” for Unlikely Mother, Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City [PDF]
2025 Danica Pinteric, “Instructions for Hands or How to Speak with Shadows,” for Rock Paper Scissors, Cooper Cole, Toronto. [PDF]
2022 Tammer El-Sheikh, “Intergenerational Dialogue and Late Style in the Palestinian Diaspora: Nour Bishouty’s Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had” Gallery 44, Toronto [PDF]
2022 Lillian O’Brien Davis and Toleen Touq, “What constitutes an acceptable landscape” Gallery 44, Toronto [PDF]
Research & Residencies
2025 Museo Universitario del Chopo, UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico
2025 Bulegoa z/b with Adrian Schindler, Bilbao, Spain
2024 Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan (in collaboration with Adrian Schindler)
2023 Ace Hotel Toronto and Images Festival Artist in Residence, Toronto, Canada
2023 Neither on Land Nor at Sea, Unidee Residency, Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella, Italy
2023 Self-directed residency, MMAG Foundation, Amman, Jordan
2021 Visiting Artist Residency, Open Studio, Toronto, Canada
2018 Images Research Forum, Images Festival, Toronto, Canada
2015 March Project, Sharjah Biennial 12, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
2014 23 Days at Sea Artist Residency, Access Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
Awards & Grants
2024 Canada Council for the Arts, Concept to Realization
2024 Canada Council for the Arts, Research and Creation
2023 Ontario Arts Council, Visual Artists Creation Projects
2023 Toronto Arts Council, Visual Artists: Creation
2022 Canada Council for the Arts, Research and Creation
2022 Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition Assistance
2021 Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition Assistance
2021 Toronto Arts Council, Visual Artists: Creation
2021 Ontario Arts Council, Chalmers Professional Development Projects
2018 Toronto Arts Council, Visual Artists
2015 Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) — Visual Arts
2015 Access Gallery, Canada Council for the Arts
2013 University of Massachusetts Amherst — Dissertation Fellowship Short List
2012 UMass Arts Council, Production Grant
2008 Fusion Arts Exchange Program Scholarship, Rhode Island School of Design
2008 Visiting International Artist Award, Ministry of Heritage and Culture, Italy — Mediterranea Artist Residency, L’Aquila
Collections
The National Gallery of Canada, Library & Archives
The Burnaby Art Gallery
The RBC Art Collection
Private collections
Public Presentations
2025 Artist talk (invited), Curating 101: Workshopping Curatorial Process Through Exhibitions and Institutions, organized by Heather Canlas-Rigg, Gallery 44, Toronto
2025 Guest artist talk (invited), Curating Matters—Contexts and Issues in Contemporary Curatorial Practices, Heather Canlas Rigg, Department of Visual Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga
2025 Book Launch and public conversation: 731.52 cm of land in conversation with Adam HajYahia, Printed Matter, New York
2025 Session 117, Illegal Cinema, curated in collaboration with Adrian Schindler for bulegoa z/b, Bilbao, Spain
2025 Artist talk in collaboration with Adrian Schindler, bulegoa z/b, Bilbao, Spain.
2025 Book Launch and public conversation: 731.52 cm of land in conversation with Zoe Imani Sharpe, Gallery TPW (170 St. Helens Ave) as a part of Palestine All the Time, a 24-hour program.
2025 Guest artist talk (invited), The Constructed Image, Erdem Taşdelen, University of Toronto, Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, 2023.
2024 Guest artist talk (invited), Reframing Palestine: Archival Disruptions and New Imaginaries, York University, Toronto, Canada
2023 Guest artist talk (invited) The Constructed Image, Erdem Taşdelen, University of Toronto, Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, 2023.
2022 Book launch and public conversation: 1—130: Selected works Ghassan Bishouty b. 1941 Safad, Palestine — d. 2004 Amman, Jordan, in conversation with Swapnaa Tamhane, Volume 5, Volume MTL, and Maktaba Bookshop, Montreal.
2022 Public conversation and Library Intervention: 1—130: Selected works Ghassan Bishouty b. 1941 Safad, Palestine — d. 2004 Amman, Jordan with Leyla El Sayed Hussein, Beirut Art Center, Beirut
2021 Book lunch and public conversation: 1—130: Selected works Ghassan Bishouty b. 1941 Safad, Palestine — d. 2004 Amman, Jordan, in conversation with with Rayya Badran and Jacob korczynski, Art Metropole, Toronto (online)
Teaching
Visiting Faculty
Banff Art Centre, Early Career Banff Artist in Residence 2026 – with Jacob Korczynski
Sessional Faculty
University of Toronto, Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design: Visual Studies VIS 319: Defining Landscapes, Fall 2023, Winter 2025
Instructor of Record
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Fall 2011, Winter 2012, Fall 2012, Winter 2013, Fall 2013, Winter 2014
Workshops
MMAG Foundation, Intermediary Regions, Experimental research and study group, Amman, 2023
Education
2014–15 Home Workspace Program, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, Lebanon
2014 MFA, University of Massachusetts Amherst, United States
2008 Fusion Arts Exchange Program, Rhode Island School of Design, United States
2008 BFA, School of Visual Arts and Design, University of Jordan, Jordan