Albi Institute influences the creative industries in Israel through pipeline programs that shift the context of creative production in Israel. With the realities of Israeli audiences and politics in mind, these programs seek to expand the space for critical voices in cultural production across fields and industries to thrive and be true vehicles for change.
Flagship Artists
Albi supports a cohort of flagship artists whose very being and creative drive embody the values we seek to promote in the world. These artists may be writing books, performing comedy, or weaving baskets. We’ll support them wherever their creative drive takes them.
2023 & 2024:
Tamer Nafar
Rapper
is world renowned as the first Arabic-language rapper, and his band DAM was the first ever Palestinian hip hop group. Launched in 2001, DAM became a household name for Palestinians in Israel, the Occupied Territories, and the diaspora. Today, Tamer is expanding his artistic career to include film and television acting, theater acting, English-language rapping, and writing. He is working on an imagined memoir and a graphic novel, both of which have gained the interest of major publishers. His English EP is signed with a major record label. Tamer has always pushed boundaries in his work and as our flagship artist, he’ll have more resources to continue expanding and pushing in new areas.
Selected Works
Noam Shuster-Eliassi
Comedian
is an intersectional Israeli comedian. In addition to the Albi-supported documentary Coexistence, My Ass! being made about her, Noam is also in the process of creating her one-woman show for Audible, which brought down the house night after night at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in summer 2023. She is also working on two scripted TV shows for Israeli prime-time and is performing her comedy regularly online and onstage in English, Hebrew, and Arabic (with a touch of Farsi). Noam has already managed to crack up a wider swath of audiences than perhaps any comedian in the region - we’re honored to help her crack more barriers and cross more borders, and reach new soon-to-be fans.
Selected Works
Yossi Zabari
Writer and Spoken Word Artist
is a writer and spoken word artist who has conquered the Internet time and again with viral videos that are catchier than the Black Plague. The author of several books of poetry, Yossi is also a theater actor, stand-up comedian and proud gay father. Yossi has spent much of the past year on tour in Europe, criss-crossing the continent from Reykjavik to the Rhine, delivering his direct and daring spoken word to international audiences increasingly told that solidarity with the peoples of Israel-Palestine must be divided. The proceeds from the tour are going directly to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. When Yossi fills the stage with his whole-self presence — Yemeni-descended, Arabic-inflected, queer — no assumptions are left unchecked, while every expectation is surpassed; the movement to imagine a different day after is strengthened by the power of his words and his deeds.
Selected Works
Addam Yekutieli
Conceptual Artist
is a multidisciplinary artist that deals with issues of cross-cultural encounter, historical and personal narratives and memory. Offering an aesthetic of ambiguity, his projects aim to foster intuitive and empathetic connections and explore the possibilities and re-imagination of larger social and political realities. With an illustrious career as a street artist, Addam previously made art under the alias Know Hope, and was known by many as the “Israeli Banksy.” After revealing his identity some years ago, Addam has been making a transition from street art to more conceptual art made in studio, for protests, and in community with other artists and activists. Presently, he is traversing an intersection of activist and art spaces and is the subject of a new documentary “The Abstract and the Very Real,” by Omer Shamir. We are thrilled to support Addam’s iconic imagery and prophetic artistic vision in the various forms that it currently takes and will take.
Selected Works
