Representing the Past for Renegotiating the Present in a Warring Context: The Case of Visual Art in Gaza

Since 2007, the Gaza Strip experiences a humanitarian crisis. In spite of this, Gaza witnesses a great vitality in the artistic scene. Indeed, most of the Palestinian artists come from this area and a significant number among them has managed to reach an international visibility. Most of them invoke the great tales from Palestinian History to renegotiate their present, using very creative tools (video art, installation…) and referring to the Palestinian collective memory but in a more conceptual -even humoristic- way, to reach a wider audience. Through the cases of two artists' collectives - Eltiqa (connected to international institutions) and Juzu`(supported by local islamists' groups) - and of gazan artists from the diaspora (like Taysir Batniji), I explore the representations of the past in the visual art of this conflicted region. How are traumatic narratives used by the artists, becoming witnesses of their age, to claim political and social changes?