hen Palestinian artist Taysir Batniji’s first museum retrospective in France opened in June at the Musee d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, his native Gaza was being bombarded by the Israel Defense Forces, while residents of the East Jerusalem neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah faced forced expulsions. This context is crucial for grasping Batniji’s practice, which centers Palestinian identity in its individual and collective forms. Since the late 1990s, his practice has oscillated
