The Gaza map is a large-scale cartographic installation by a Palestinian architect and artist Hala Alnaji. It was originally created in Cairo on a piece of fabric stitched by the displaced Palestinians who were able to leave Gaza after October 7, 2023, such as the artist's family. The map bears witness to the stories of escape, death or survival, it evokes living narratives, roads of despair and hope, ways and short-cuts walked on. 

Its coordinates are fear and exhaustion, the memory of separation and checkpoints, but also the longing for the happier days or loved ones: a memory of a house where someone grew up, a mosque from childhood, a local hospital. All those stories were then etched into a fire-scorched wooden floor, as an attempt of reconstruction not with bricks but with fragments of memory. The map is a sum of narratives creating the counter-cartography, challenging the official aerial schemes and foregrounding the bottom-up experience. Rather than reproducing territorial control, the installation reconstructs Gaza through embodied knowledge and narrative traces by those who have been forced to leave and those who continue to live there despite all odds. 


Hala Alnaji (1988), a Palestinian from Gaza who lives between Malmö, London and Cairo. 


Presented with the support of IASPIS, the Swedish Arts Council's international program for image and design.