New York Arab Festival Concludes with THE ALCHEMIST RECIPES
The festival comes to an end on May 31.
By: Emmy Rice May. 31, 2025
The New York Arab Festival (NYAF) culminates its fourth edition with a vibrant, day-long celebration titled The Alchemist’s Recipes, hosted at the iconic Atelier Jolie at 57 Great Jones Street. The event takes place on May 31 from 11:00am-6:00pm.
This closing art-marathon honors the legacy of Moroccan painter and playwright Ahmed Yacoubi, weaving together his visual art with contemporary Arab voices through food, poetry, film, and live performance.
This closing event is co-curated by Sozita Goudouna and Adham Hafez, and presented in partnership with The Invisible Dog Art Center. The event runs from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM. It features rare works from the Ahmed Yacoubi Collection, exhibited for the first time at Atelier Jolie. The program includes a Moroccan mint tea welcome, a tagine lunch by Chef Rkia of OffBeat Eats—a collective of refugee and displaced chefs, a talk by curator and writer Omar Berrada on the stories of self-taught artist Ahmed Yacoubi and his exchanges with New York galleries, a cooking demonstration by Lucien Zayan based on Ahmed Yacoubi’s iconic book ‘the Alchemist’s Recipes’, a reading by actor and writer Amr Kotb based on the works of Ahmed Yacoubi, and a closing solo acoustic set by Tunisian-American star EMEL, presenting a selection of her iconic songs in an unplugged setting for the first time. Throughout the day, Arab art films will be screened in the basement studio, and selected paintings by Ahmed Yacoubi will be on display.
Atelier Jolie, founded by Angelina Jolie, is a socially conscious fashion studio located in a historic building that once housed artists Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The venue's rich artistic heritage and commitment to community engagement make it a fitting location for this celebration of Arab culture, as well as the closing events for the New York Arab Festival (NYAF) this year, concluding a two-month-long program of arts and culture.
NYAF is curated by Adham Hafez, produced by Cindy Sibilsky, managed by Sandra Geovany, Nader Hafez and Adam Kucharski, with the RASEEF program on art, architecture and urbanism curated by Adam Kucharski. The festival is a project of HaRaKa Platform and is powered by Wizara. This year’s focus on art history is supported by Tawareekh: Contemporary Arab Art Histories, an art-history documentation project by scholar, curator and artist Adham Hafez.
Established by Arab, Arab American, and American curators, producers, and artists, New York Arab Festival is New York City's premier festival dedicated to Arab and Arab American arts and culture. Each year, the festival presents a diverse array of performances, exhibitions, panels, films, concerts, and culinary events across multiple boroughs. This year's edition emphasized themes of resilience and transformation, featuring artists from Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Tunisia, and Palestine.
ABOUT NYAF: A Celebration of Arab Arts and Voices
The New York Arab Festival (NYAF) was founded in 2022 by Arab, Arab American, and American artists, curators, and producers to amplify the voices and creative expression of Arab communities in the U.S. and abroad. Over the past four editions, the festival has grown into a city-wide cultural movement, offering performances, panels, exhibitions, culinary experiences, and film screenings across all five boroughs. Highlights have included artists such as filmmaker and choreographer Sarah Brahim (KSA), singer and performance artist H. Sinno (Lebanon), filmmaker and multimedia artist Khaled Jarrar (Palestine), composer Maurice Louca (Egypt), Choreographer Leyya Mona Tawil (US/Syria/Palestine), fashion designer Mona Hamid (Sudan/ USA), poet and writer Zeinab Ftes (Libya) among others. The festival is made possible through partnerships with esteemed New York institutions and spaces, including the Museum of the Moving Image, National Sawdust, Atelier Jolie, La MaMa ETC, Nublu, LPR, The Invisible Dog, among many others.
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