Rehaf Al Batniji

Rehaf Al Batniji is a photographer and visual artist based in Gaza City, Palestine. A self-taught artist, Rehaf Al Batniji paints and draws while working as an educator teaching photography to Youth and Adults at different institutions in Gaza. In her photographic practice, Al Batniji is interested in street photography as she feels the street is a portal through which she learns about the lives, cultures and identities of the people who dwell in her city. Streets seem to have the power to represent a country’s culture, both the light and the dark, and photography is a way to capture that.

A native Palestinian, Batniji has lived through four major conflicts in Gaza, through which she continued to produce work in various contexts, incorporating different mediums. Imbued with social purpose, yet infused with refreshing positivity, Rehaf Al Batniji’s photography rejects the brutal imagery of conflict and instead uses colour as a tool for resistance, reflecting the vibrancy of life in Gaza.

Al Batniji has collaborated, throughout the years, with several organizations, including Qattan Foundation (Palestine), Goethe (Palestine), Institut Français de Gaza (Palestine), Institut français de Tunis (Tunis), Kamel Lazaar foundation (Tunis), Darat al Funun (Jordan), Cairo Photo Week (Egypt), and Gulf Photo Plus (United Arab Emirates). She has shown her work through several exhibitions, collective (Jaou Tunis festival, October 2022) and solo (A fable of the sea in Institut Francais de Gaza, October 2022). Most recently, Al Batniji was awarded the Institut Français X Cité internationale des arts residency programme.