John Halaka

John Halaka (born 1957) is an Egyptian-born American visual artist, documentary filmmaker, and Professor of Visual Arts at the University of San Diego in California. He is considered an expert in painting, drawing, photography, documentary filmmaking, oral history, and modern and contemporary Palestinian art.

Education and publications
Halaka was born in El Mansoura, Egypt, in 1957. His father was Palestinian and his mother was Lebanese. They moved to the United States in 1970.

He received his Master's of Fine Arts degree in 1983 from the University of Houston in Texas.

He has taught at the University of San Diego since 1991.

His writing has appeared in edited anthologies, art catalogues, and academic journals, most often Jadaliyya. He has also been interviewed for and profiled in journalistic and academic reports on contemporary Arab art.



Artistic works
Halaka's artwork has been exhibited in Michigan; California; Alaska; Washington, D.C.; Palestine; Spain; and the United Kingdom. He was featured in the inaugural exhibit of the Arab American National Museum. He also participated in the ongoing "I Witness Silwan" mural project in Batan al Hawa and contributed to the major exhibition (and subsequent book) The Map Is Not the Territory: Parallel Paths—Palestinians, Native Americans, Irish (2013).

He is past recipient of a Fulbright award to Lebanon, where he conducted oral history interviews among Palestinian refugees of multiple generations. He was also awarded a U.S. Scholar fellowship from the Palestinian American Research Center for 2018–2019 for his project Vanishing Harvest: Meditations on the End of Palestinian Agriculture.

Select bibliography

 * "Sketches from the Margins of Marginalized Communities: Lessons in survival, resilience and resistance acquired from Palestinian refugees," in Migration Across Boundaries: linking research to practice and experience, edited by Parvati Nair and Tendayi Bloom (2016).