Dearly Beloved
Jude Abu Zaineh

October 2025 – January 2026

Dearly Beloved is an intimate homage to ancestral lands, reflecting the intricate ecology of occupied New York and Ontario, where Jude Abu Zaineh resides. This work explores the dynamic interplay of cultural and geographical landscapes through indigenous and introduced plant species and food remnants. Petri-dish environments reveal hidden microbial communities, making the invisible visible while highlighting hybrid existences. These themes symbolize the adaptability of indigenous and exiled peoples to new homesteads and colonized lands, emphasizing resilience amidst change. The exhibition draws parallels between natural cycles of life, death, evolution, and decay, illustrating how these processes sustain and renew ecological systems. Dearly Beloved invites viewers to reflect on the symbiotic relationships within nature, celebrating the enduring strength of those navigating and enriching diverse landscapes despite imperial and colonial presence.

This exhibition was originally commissioned by Artcite Inc. and supported by Canada Council for the Arts, and Ontario Arts Council.

Jude Abu Zaineh is a Palestinian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist-curator working across art, food, science, and technology studies. Her work develops counter-archive practices and investigates themes of culture, displacement, storytelling, diaspora, and belonging, through de-colonial and feminist perspectives. She examines ideals of home and community influenced by her childhood and upbringing in Southwest Asia. 

Abu Zaineh is the recipient of several awards including the 2020 William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists, and was one of the first selected artists to participate in a collaborative residency with the Ontario Science Centre and MOCA Toronto (Canada). She has presented her works at Ireland Glass Biennale; Malta Society of Arts, Valletta, Malta; Cultivamos Cultura, São Luis, Portugal; Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, Lisbon, Portugal; Centro de Cultura Digital, Mexico City, Mexico; SVA, NYC, USA; Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, USA; Forest City Gallery, London, Canada; Art Gallery of Windsor, Canada; Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris, France; Museum London, Canada; Museum of Glass, Washington, USA, and more.

Her work has been featured in VICE Arabia, PBS, NPR, across CBC Canada platforms, Canadian Art magazine, NEUES GLAS-NEW GLASS: art & architecture magazines, and on the cover of fuse: the Museum of Glass Magazine.

Abu Zaineh's works can be found in the permanent collections of The Museum of Glass (USA), Art Windsor-Essex (Canada), The City of Windsor's Public Art Commission (Canada), as well as private collections internationally.

She received an MFA from the University of Windsor (Canada) and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (NY, USA), where she was an RPI Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences Fellow and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellow.

She maintains an active studio practice between upstate NY, USA and southern Ontario, Canada.