YALLA: You’ll Never Walk Alone

YALLA: You’ll Never Walk Alone: is a solo exhibition featuring images and ephemera from Brooklyn-based, Lebanese, Palestinian-American photographer, Marwan Shousher. The exhibition title, “YALLA” is loosely translated as “C’mon. Let’s Go!” in Arabic, while the subtitle refers to the song, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” by Gerry & The Pacemakers (1963), which has become an iconic working class anthem associated with European football clubs in Liverpool, Glasgow, and Dortmund. The combination of phrases references the exhibition’s intersection between the subculture of soccer fandom and transnational solidarity.

Through Shousher’s unique lens, the photographs of soccer matches and refugee children have been transposed onto large scale “banners,” reminiscent of ones held up in arenas by Ultras. Metaphorically situated from the “ground up” within camps and coliseums, their relationality is based on how soccer fans have become the voice for the voiceless facing political repression.

This immersive installation is meant to mimic the infectious spirit found in spaces—whether a stadium or a stripped down “field”—that position movement as a reclamation of joy, dignity, and human connection.