Khaled Jarada, Honorary Mention of the Reiffers Art Prize 2026
Khaled Jarada was born in 1996 in Gaza City, Palestine, and lives and works in Paris, France. The artist creates compositions captured in medias res (in the midst of things). His figures appear unbalanced, anxious, out of place. The condition of suspension in his works is not only temporal but also spatial.
Khaled Jarada is awarded the Honorary Mention for the fifth edition of the Reiffers Art Prize, Tinkering with the unknown.
Exhibition view of "Tinkering with the unknown"
Khaled Jarada, 2026
the remains gesture
Khaled Jarada, 2026
Dry Fire
Khaled Jarada, 2026Biography
Jarada began exploring the unease of this liminal dimension when he himself experienced displacement, living in exile. Rejecting all forms of rigidity, he elevates moments, places, objects, and figures—often overlooked—transforming them into subjects worthy of display, appreciation, and idealization.
Jarada has also illustrated numerous children’s books, working with several publishing houses. He has worked as an animator and taken part in various international exhibitions. In 2020, he completed a residency at Shababeek Studio in Gaza, supported by the Qattan Foundation, where he presented his project "Metres". That same year, at the Palestine Video Art Festival, the French Institute in Palestine awarded him a production grant for his project ‘Pandemic Diaries’.
In 2021, he was selected for a residency at the the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome. In France, he joined the residency program at La Filleuse in Reims in 2022 and, in 2024, at the Festival Ciné-Palestine in Paris. Also in 2024, he took part in the group exhibition Musée Sahab at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and held his first solo show, Non Key Frame, at Fann À Porter in Dubai. Since 2021, he has been a member of the Agency of Artists in Exile.