Jarban Ahlam

Born in 1992 in Sanaa, Yemen, Ahlam Jarban holds a degree in petroleum geology and is currently studying at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. She has turned to painting, street art (textile creations, graffiti), sculpture (metal and resin), and digital art. She is Yemen’s first female graffiti artist and has created numerous political graffiti pieces in her hometown since 2010. In her country, she faced war and the challenges of being a woman—especially a racialized one due to her Somali and Ethiopian origins—forcing her to leave.

Ahlam arrived in France in 2018 via Jordan. She exhibited at the 2019 Visions d’exil festival at the Cité internationale des arts – Site de Montmartre, and created a monumental fresco for the wall of the Pavillon Carré de Baudouin during the D’un confinement à l’autre exhibition at the 2020 Visions d’exil festival, with the Art Azoï association. She is a member of the Agency of Artists in Exile.