Atelier (22.06.2006 - 07.06.2009)
Color photograph on paper
150 x 100 cm

Hannoun 1972-2009
Installation / Performance

The red pencil, an artists' tool, is a symbol of an art process that in Batniji's work is constantly interrupted; where as the sea of shavings is an obsession from childhood that he revisits to link the past with the present. The pencils, long associated with drawing, represent art he no longer practices, thereby assuming a poetic function. Their red color, barely visible, is multiplied several folds in the thousands of shavings that create a sea of fragile "petals" reminiscent of the anemones long associated with the Palestinian landscape and celebrated in poetry and song. The work is performative. Created outside a studio, it is a transient confrontation between the artist, his work and his Gaza studio (on the photo in the back) that he cannot reach.