Artists in residence

Caribbean painter (Guadeloupe, France) born in 1961, Jocelyn Akwaba Matignon grew up in northern France. Introduced to drawing and painting at a very young age by his father Francis, a draughtsman during the Algerian War, he developed a strong artistic sensibility. First a glassblower and then a master glassmaker, at the age of 28 he felt the need to explore more personal creative expression. He enrolled at the École d’Art in La Roche-sur-Yon and then the Beaux-Arts in Angers, a revelatory step that reinforced his passion for pictorial art. For more than thirty years, he has been exhibiting his work in France and internationally. His work, a fusion of cultures and influences, explores themes such as identity and cultural heritage. His compositions, often colourful and dynamic, use painting, sculpture and installation. The central symbolic element of his works is the dreamlike character with multiple limbs and a strange mandorla-shaped head, the ‘KiOuKan’ (Who-Where-When), a mystical consciousness that questions reality and our place in time and space. Between abstraction and figurative art, his style flirts with surrealism. Using mainly acrylics, he draws inspiration from Mexican artists. His works are featured in galleries, institutions and the LINKONG Museum of Contemporary Art in China. Based in Guadeloupe, he continues to enrich his artistic career.

Rehaf Al Batniji is a self-taught photographer and visual artist based in Gaza City, Palestine, who has participated in several local and international exhibitions. Most recently Al Batniji Awarded the Institute of France X Cité internationale des arts residency programme. And she has shown her work during several exhibitions being collective (Jaou Tunis festival, October 2022) or solo (A fable of the sea in Institut francais de Gaza, october 2022). Her work was featured in the September 2022 issue of Le Monde Diplomatique magazine. She also participated in a residency program at FilepaManuela in Madrid (Dec 21- Feb 22).

Her first solo exhibition was in the backyard (Al Hakoora) of her house in Gaza City in 2020. Previously, Al Batniji has collaborated with several organizations including Qattan Foundation (Palestine), Goethe (Palestine), Institut francais de Gaza (Palestine), Institut français de Tunis (Tunis), Kamel Lazaar foundation (Tunis), Darat al Funun (Jordan), Cairo Photo week (Egypt), Gulf Photo Plus (United Arab Emirates). A self-taught artist, Rehaf Al Batniji also paints and draws, and works as an educator teaching photography to Youth and Adults for different institutions in Gaza. In her photographic practice, Al Batniji is interested in street photography as she feels that the street is a portal through which she learns about the lives, cultures and identities of the people who dwell in her city. She feels that the streets have the power to represent the culture of a country, both the light and dark sides, and that photography has the power to do the same.

A native Palestinian, Batniji has lived through four major conflicts in Gaza through which she continued to produce work in various contexts and incorporating different mediums. Her work is imbued with social purpose yet with refreshing positivity, Rehaf Al Batniji’s photography reject’s the brutal imagery of conflict and instead use color as a tool for resistance to reflect the vibrance of life in Gaza. She has developed a unique and personal visual language through her intimate observations of details in the landscape and the beauty found in its relationship to the people populating it.

Born in 1993 in Damascus, Syria, Yara Al Hasbani studied dance at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Art in Damascus. She is a prizewinner of the FoRTE programme of the Île-de-France Region, the Caisse des dépôts, the SACD and AFAC for Elham, her first group creation about the confiscation of women’s bodies in the world.

Yara Al Hasbani is currently working on the Elham project, a 50-minute trio in which she wishes to present her own story and that of the dancers by her side. The aim is to explore the relationship we have with our own bodies through the confiscation of that of women.  During her residency at the Cité internationale des arts, Yara Al Hasbani will continue to work on the second part of the project which represents the liberation of bodies, a celebration of the achievements and the powers of women.

For this project, the artist collaborates with Aurélia Chalono and Ludivine Mirre (dance), Hiba Salameh (music), Khaled Alwarea (scenography), Fanie Ciara (costumes).