Gabriella is a Lebanese-American multidisciplinary artist, spatial researcher and educator.
Gabriella’s work draws on the various disciplines of political ecology, visual culture, and elemental media to investigate power’s spatial conditioning of environments, particularly in regards to issues of environmental justice and food sovereignty. Her practice is both lens-based and material-focused, informed by her decade-long experience as a member of the White House press, where she photographed three presidential administrations, Washington politics, and stories across the US related to immigration and environmental policy for The New York Times, TIME, National Geographic, and various other publications. Her photographic work has been recognized by Pictures of the Year International, The White House News Photographers Association, American Photography, and the Magnum Foundation.
She is co-founder of Al-Wah’at, an artist-research collective building communal, ecological, and artistic practices of care and repair in response to growing aridity in the Mediterranean. They are 2025 residents at the Jan Van Eyck Academy, 2023 LINA fellows, and recipients of the 2023 COAL prize for art and ecology.
Gabriella holds a graduate degree in Research Architecture from Goldsmiths, University of London and an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts and Journalism from The George Washington University.
Key details
School, Centre or Area
Gallery
More information
Current and recent projects
‘Wild Hedges’ by Al-Wah’at (2023-Ongoing)
Together with Areej Ashhab and Ailo Ribas, ‘Wild Hedges' studies the ecological and socio-political complexities of the prickly pear cactus and the cochineal insect across multiple geographies, communities and temporalities. Collectively, the project explores the material possibilities of the cactus – in building, weaving, and cooking – and of the cochineal – in dyeing and printing – in order to cultivate practices of care and repair and form alternative narratives within arid environments. The collective’s practice is both research-based and community-oriented, composed of archival research, on-the-ground fieldwork, public workshops, material experimentation, exhibitions, and publications.
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Publications
Gabriella Demczuk, “Future Nature: Biocapital and the Patenting of Life” in Vegetal Futures: How Plants Shape Worlds to Come, Edited by Giulia Carabelli, Franklin Ginn & Matthew Beach, Bloomsbury Press, 2026.
Areej Ashhab, Gabriella Demczuk, and Ailo Ribas, “Red Threads: Weaving Land and Ritual in Ein Qiniya” in Living Continuity, Sharjah, UAE: Sharjah Architectural Triennial, 2025.
Areej Ashhab, Gabriella Demczuk, and Ailo Ribas, “Sensing Ecologies of Dispossession: a Dialogue on Roots and Shoots,” Common Sensing, The Centre for Research Architecture, Edited by Riccardo Badano, Tomas Percival, Susan Schuppli, Spector Books, 2025.
Gabriella Demczuk, “Framing Spaces of Power-Making,” The Avery Review, Columbia University, April 2025.
Areej Ashhab, Gabriella Demczuk, and Ailo Ribas, “Patience as Resistance,” The Avery Review, Columbia University, Nov. 2024.
Exhibitions
2024, “Our People are Our Mountains,” Al-Wah’at, Jakarta Biennale, de Appel, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2024, “Wild Hedges,” The Active Image: Political Ecologies & Photographic Agency, Create Gallery, Bristol, U.K.
2024, “As the Seas Rise,” Future Now, Format 24 Photography Festival, Leicester, U.K.
2023, ‘Wild Hedges,’ Al-Wah’at, Sans Réserve Festival, Museum of Hunting and Nature, Paris, France
2022, “America in Crisis,” Saatchi Gallery, London, U.K.
2021, “Time, Water, and Space,” Artist Presentation, Maya Lin’s ‘Ghost Forests’, Fotografiska, New York, NY
Awards and grants
2024, Anhar: Culture and Climate Platform by Art Jameel and The British Council
2023, Prix COAL
2023, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, Visual Arts Grant