Glimpses

Home Away from Home

Gaza-Born Taysir Batniji Documents His U.S. Relatives’ Lives

Taysir Batniji, from Home Away from Home (Aperture/Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2018). © Taysir Batniji.

Taysir Batniji, from Home Away from Home (Aperture/Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2018). © Taysir Batniji.

Taysir Batniji, from Home Away from Home (Aperture/Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2018). © Taysir Batniji.

Taysir Batniji, from Home Away from Home (Aperture/Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2018). © Taysir Batniji.

Taysir Batniji, from Home Away from Home (Aperture/Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2018). © Taysir Batniji.

Taysir Batniji, from Home Away from Home (Aperture/Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2018). © Taysir Batniji.

Taysir Batniji, from Home Away from Home (Aperture/Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2018). © Taysir Batniji.

Taysir Batniji, from Home Away from Home (Aperture/Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2018). © Taysir Batniji.

Taysir Batniji, from Home Away from Home (Aperture/Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2018). © Taysir Batniji.

Taysir Batniji, from Home Away from Home (Aperture/Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2018). © Taysir Batniji.

In his photo series Home Away from Home, the Gaza-born Franco-Palestinian artist Taysir Batniji explores and documents the daily lives of people dwelling in intermediate states—between the land of their birth and their adopted country. His subjects, though, are not anonymous exiles. They’re relatives who immigrated to the United States from the Middle East. Between January and July 2017, Batniji traveled to Florida and California to meet these familiar strangers, observing and recording them at work and at home. With his painterly eye, he captures the nuances of dislocation as well as the construction of identity within his family diaspora. Home Away from Home was exhibited last spring at the Aperture Foundation in New York, and will be presented this summer as part of an exhibition of Batniji’s work at the Rencontres d’Arles in France.


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