La Palestine photographiée par Joss Dray

The library of the Institut du monde arabe presents a rare and moving record of everyday Palestinian life, its faces, places and memory, through a selection of photographs — many previously unseen — drawn from several reportages by Joss Dray taken between 1987 and 2001.

The exhibition is organised as part of the 2026 European Heritage Days and to mark the renaming of the IMA library as the Bibliothèque Leïla Shahid, in honour of the great voice of Palestine in France and Europe, who died last February.

In 2001, Joss Dray was commissioned by the IMA to carry out a photographic reportage in Palestine. Her photographs document the daily life of Palestinians, whether living in the Palestinian territories, in refugee camps or within the diaspora, with work spanning the camps of Jabalia, Shati, Kalandia, Dheisheh and Jenin, as well as several camps in Lebanon. To this body of work, the photographer has added earlier images taken between 1987 and 1995, showing the Khan Younis camp across time, the Rafah border after the Gaza–Jericho agreement, everyday life and the markets and coastline of Gaza City, children's demonstrations during the First Intifada, and streets covered in graffiti following the Oslo Accords.

A French photographer, Joss Dray has documented the daily life and forms of resistance of the Palestinian people since 1987. Her work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and publications, including Revenir à Jénine: une histoire vivante du camp de réfugiés (1989–2018), published in 2020 with a preface by Leïla Shahid.