Mona Hatoum "Bukhara (Red and White)", 2008, wool carpet, 143 × 225 cm. (Credit: National Museum of the History of Immigration, Paris)
Keys lined up along a vast display wall draw the eye — 80 in total — because Palestinian artist Taysir Batniji refuses to exhibit fewer at once, with his collection having surpassed 500. They tell the exile stories of families from Gaza displaced in 2024. Beneath each set of keys, a surname, sometimes an address and in some cases, all that can be read is: "Missing information." The keychains carry the narrative of homes destroyed and disappeared; beyond the objects collected by the artist, it’s the forced exodus that resonates, with all its heartbreak. Throughout the exhibition “Heritage and resistance, from Timbuktu to Odesa,” at the "Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine" in Paris, curators Mathilde Leloup and Élisabeth Essaïan sought to place the human element at the forefront. The bet is won, while offering a...
Keys lined up along a vast display wall draw the eye — 80 in total — because Palestinian artist Taysir Batniji refuses to exhibit fewer at once, with his collection having surpassed 500. They tell the exile stories of families from Gaza displaced in 2024. Beneath each set of keys, a surname, sometimes an address and in some cases, all that can be read is: "Missing information." The keychains carry the narrative of homes destroyed and disappeared; beyond the objects collected by the artist, it’s the forced exodus that resonates, with all its heartbreak. Throughout the exhibition “Heritage and resistance, from Timbuktu to Odesa,” at the "Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine" in Paris, curators Mathilde Leloup and Élisabeth Essaïan sought to place the human element at the forefront. The bet is won,...
