Members and volunteers of the Gaza Travel Agency at Dutch Design Week
Gaza Travel Agency, the speculative exhibition inviting audiences to imagine alternative futures for Palestine and the world, announces its participation in Hoop voor Gaza at the Bergkerk Cultural Centre in Deventer, Netherlands (8-22 April 2026). This iteration of the Gaza Travel Agency follows the participation of many thousands of visitors at its inaugural installation at Dutch Design Week during October 2025, in Eindhoven, as well as shorter pop-ups in Amsterdam thereafter.
Gaza Travel Agency shows the return of Palestinian refugees from Gaza and elsewhere to their places of origin as the only viable option for the future and to resolve the humanitarian crisis. Bringing creativity and an almost playful tone to what is often considered taboo into the public realm unsettles audiences, opening possibilities for dialogue.
It is appropriate for Gaza Travel Agency to be featured next to The Nomadic Monument for Gaza, as both projects employ liminal design to simultaneously disturb audiences and encourage generative conversation.
Abushaban’s own artistic works, The Power of Language and The Architecture of Perseverance, will also be featured at Hope for Gaza in Deventer.
Gaza Travel Agency has been sparking so many genuine and surprising conversations, with audiences encountering the Right of Return for the first time. We are looking forward to bringing that same energy to the visitors of Hoop voor Gaza in Deventer, and to taking Gaza Travel Agency further across the Netherlands and Europe.
This upcoming event will be held at the Bergkerk. This Romanesque basilica was built around 1209 and consecrated to Saint Nicholas. In 1580, the Dutch Reformed Church took the temple and renamed it the Mountain Church. In 1967, the church was disestablished and its property transferred to the Municipality of Deventer. The building is used as an exhibition center and concert hall.
The site of Hoop voor Gaza in the Bergkerk in Deventer, a Romanesque Basilica built around 1209 and former church, reminds us of the historic Christian Palestinian community in Gaza, which includes my own family, who spent most of the past 3 years in seeking refuge in the Catholic Church in Gaza City.
Gaza Travel Agency is a project of local Palestinian members, helped by many international volunteers in partnership with Human Rights NGO Zochrot and coordinated by the Netherlands-based NGO Design Reparations. It grew out of the Bring Gaza Home campaign, created by Palestinian and Jewish Israeli activists in response to the events after 7 October 2023. The Bring Gaza Home Campaign, which was featured in Al Jazeera and the New York Times among other outlets, emphasised the right of Palestinian refugees in Gaza to return to their original homes in pre-partition Palestine in response to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
ABOUT HOOP VOOR GAZA
Hoop voor Gaza is an exhibition from 8 to 22 April 2026 at the Bergkerk in Deventer, providing space for the Nomadic Monument for Gaza, works from the Art Academy for Young Talent in Gaza, Gaza Travel Agency, work from Lebanese renowned artist Mounira al Solh, and works by Palestinian artists in connection to Gaza in the Netherlands. In collaboration with the library of Deventer, there will be a special literature and film evening, and musicians will interpret an evening of Middle Eastern music. All killed aid workers in Gaza will also be given a special place in the choir of the church. The exhibition is about humanity, hope, and resilience. Where hope is not just optimism but a deeply felt power to create something for the better. https://www.artply.org/programmaboekje-hoop-voor-gaza/#Architectuur