In 2025 OTO Sound Museum and Dar Jacir for Art and Research partnered together to establish the first Palestinian art prize dedicated to sound and listening. The 2025 prize was awarded to Dahaleez Collective, a Gaza-based research art collective whose work sits at the intersection of sound, narrative, and political memory. Dahaleez is a multifaceted sonic-arts archive, collecting field recordings, oral testimonies, and historical material to counter erasure, evoke memory, and open futures. Rooted in Gaza yet resonating globally, Dahaleez create spaces of listening that amplify collective experience.
For the OTO Award x Dar Jacir for Art and Research, Dahaleez produced a new sound piece entitled From-To which testifies and reimagines one of Gaza City’s most vital arteries, Al-Rashid Street. Intertwining past, present, and future in a multidimensional sonic narrative, the piece weaves together sonic fragments, voices, and orchestral compositions to reconstruct the collective memory of the street. The piece draws on sonic matter and reflections gathered during workshops held by Dahaleez collective in 2024-2025, where artists and cultural workers discussed the meaning and memory of the street. Original sounds from personal archives were woven together with music and symbolic sonic gestures to evoke layers of history and lived experience. At its core, the composition includes a musical piece by Mahmoud Abuwarda, originally written during the 11-day war in 2021 and later produced in 2025 with Lisbon Symphonic Orchestra. From–To becomes an auditory journey, an archive of place and time resonating between what was, what is, and what might be.