Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme's 'Prisoners of Love' Opens at The Bell Gallery

The Bell Gallery at Brown University presents 'Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom', a new exhibition by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, co-curated by Kate Kraczon and Thea Quiray Tagle. The exhibition features interviews with former political prisoners made in Palestine, celebrating poetry, music, and art as forms of survivance within systems of incarceration. Commissioned by Kraczon in 2020, it debuted at Nottingham Contemporary in 2025 and is now on view at The Bell from February 19 to May 31, 2026, marking its only US showcase. The installation uses concrete, fabric, and weathered steel as projection surfaces, incorporating Samih Al-Qasim's poem 'Enemy of the Sun' (1970), which was mis-attributed to Black Panther George Jackson. The exhibition is a collaboration with Nottingham Contemporary, Kunstinstituut Melly, and MACBA. Since 2020, the artists have engaged with Brown's community, including a 2022 talk series with CMES and Columbia University, and research at John Hay Library. In Spring 2025, they co-taught a course on mass incarceration archives.