MUNCH has announced that Samia Halaby is the second recipient of the MUNCH Award, given annually by MUNCH in Oslo to honour artistic freedom of expression, which is under increasing political and social pressure all over the world.
Samia Halaby (b. 1936 in Jerusalem) is a Palestinian artist, educator, scholar and activist based in New York. Predominantly known as a painter, Halaby’s multifaceted practice has also been central to the development of digital art. Her involvement in art education is decades-long and, throughout the course of her career, she has demonstrated a long-term commitment to protesting injustices related to class, gender and race. The plight of Palestine has remained central to her activism and her scholarship. In 2024 Halaby participated in Tate Modern’s Electric Dreams exhibition, which celebrated early pioneers of digital, kinetic, and optical art; and in October 2025 her work will be shown as part of Into the Time Machine: ‘Studio’ at Frieze Masters 2025, a section of the Fair exploring the studio practices of acclaimed living artists.
Halaby’s receipt of the MUNCH Award 2025 will be celebrated at a ceremony on 22nd October in Paris during Art Basel and on 24th October at MUNCH in Oslo.
Established in 2024, the MUNCH Award is a recognition of an artist’s long-standing courage and integrity and consists of a monetary prize of NOK 300,000 / £20,000. The first recipient was acclaimed Brazilian artist Rosana Paulino (b. 1967), whose artistic practice is committed to unpacking the violent histories and continuities of gender and race.
Edvard Munch (1863–1944) was a champion of artistic freedom, experimentation and individual liberation and the MUNCH Award is presented in his spirit, using the museum’s international reach to highlight important issues that artists have raised through their work and participation in public discourse.
Samia Halaby commented:
“I looked at the art world and realized that the responsibility was mine to decide which direction to follow.”
MUNCH director Tone Hansen commented:
“Freedom of expression is at the very heart of artistic practice, and it is a value that Edvard Munch himself defended throughout his life. With the MUNCH Award, we want to stand with artists who insist on this freedom, often under challenging circumstances. Honouring Samia Halaby means celebrating not only her artistic career but also her commitment to art as a voice for justice and change. At a time when artistic voices are increasingly silenced, it is crucial that museums use their platforms to support and amplify them.”
The MUNCH Award jury statement:
“The MUNCH Award Jury would like to honour Halaby for her visionary and enduring artistic practice. She was at the forefront of the development of digital art through her experiments with early computer coding, and has been exploring abstraction in its different forms for over 60 years. Her paintings both expand geometric traditions from the Islamic context and introduce contributions from around the world to North-Atlantic regional modernism. Halaby believes that innovative approaches to painting can reshape how we see and think—not just in terms of aesthetics, but also by opening up new ways of thinking about education, technology, and broader social issues. As an activist, she has been organizing for causes concerning class, race, and Palestine since the 1970s. Halaby has been a vocal critic of censorship in the arts for decades, which she herself has faced, and overcome.”
Samia Halaby was selected for the MUNCH Award by a jury of visual artists, art critics, curators, institutional leaders and academics appointed for three iterations of the MUNCH Award. The jury is comprised of members Wanda Nanibush, Dr. Yvette Mutumba and Cosmin Costinas alongside director of MUNCH Tone Hansen and Tominga O’Donnell, MUNCH’s Senior Curator of Contemporary Art.
