Dor Guez

Born in Jerusalem. Lives and works in Jaffa and Athens.

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Dor Guez Munayer is an artist whose practice is shaped by acts of return: to particular places, images, narratives, and material traces, revisited over years and sometimes decades to trace how their meanings shift over time. Working across photography, video, sculpture, installation, and performance, Guez examines the historical record through personal and communal experiences, attending to its inconsistencies and omissions. His work considers how images, environments, and material objects shape what can be seen, remembered, and transmitted. The past, in this sense, becomes a way of encountering the present.

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Guez’s early work emerged from the experiences of three generations of his Palestinian maternal family and their community in Lydda. Drawing on family photographs, oral testimonies, archival documents, and images he produced, he developed an artistic language in which personal accounts intersect with broader political narratives. Lydda remains a recurring point of departure throughout his practice. Other works engage with the experiences of his Jewish paternal family from Tunisia, including their migration following the Second World War and the imprisonment of family members in Nazi forced-labor camps. These distinct family histories inform his sustained attention to displacement, belonging, and the ways political events continue to shape family life. Through intimate accounts, family photographs, and domestic objects, Guez examines how war and political violence enter everyday life, leaving traces that persist across generations and often remain absent from official historical narratives.

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Over the past two decades, Guez has documented changing landscapes, architectural sites, and domestic environments, exploring forms of testimony that extend beyond written records and human witnesses. Through photographic processes, moving images, and sculptural installations, he examines how an abandoned house, a wild plant, a damaged photographic negative, or a domestic object can offer alternative perspectives on political and social transformations.

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Community Programs & Institutional Initiatives

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As an integral part of his artistic practice, Guez has developed long-term educational and curatorial initiatives that support access to higher education, provide opportunities for artists and curators, and encourage collaboration between cultural institutions and local communities.

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In 2006, he established the Samira Munayer Archive, originating from his maternal family’s photographic collection and later expanding through contributions from Palestinian families and communities.

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The Samira Munayer Scholarship Program, developed with his mother, educator Violet Munayer, supports Palestinian women pursuing higher education in art and related fields.

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Guez is also the director of SeaPort Art Center for Curatorial Research, Athens (established in 2018), an independent, artist-led institution supporting curatorial residencies, artistic exchange, and international collaborations.

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Exhibitions & Performances 

Guez has presented more than 65 solo exhibitions internationally, including at Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City; Princeton University Art Museum; MAMBO – Museum of Modern Art, Bogotá; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University; Museum for Islamic Art, Jerusalem; DEPO, Istanbul; and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.

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His work has been included in the 14th Liverpool Biennial (2027), the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, the 12th Istanbul Biennial, the 17th, 18th, and 19th editions of Videobrasil, the 24th Bienal de Arte Paiz, and Videonale.19 at Kunstmuseum Bonn. He has also participated in exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo, Paris; MAXXI, Rome; ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe; K21 – Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; The Jewish Museum, New York; Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin; Museum Villa Stuck, Munich; and Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris.

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Guez’s lecture performances combine photography, archival materials, historical objects, and spoken analysis. They have been presented at institutions including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Princeton University Art Museum; the American Colony Archive, Jerusalem; and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.

​Selected Public Collections

Guez’s works are held in the collections of Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Princeton University Art Museum; The Jewish Museum, New York; MAMBO – Museum of Modern Art, Bogotá; The New York Public Library; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; and FRAC, Marseille.

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Publications

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Guez’s work has been the subject of 11 internationally publications and monographs, released by publishers including Kerber Verlag, Distanz, New England Press, and the A. M. Qattan Foundation.

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