As storms batter Gaza’s fragile tents, an artist guards his life’s work

LONDON: After being displaced 31 times in Gaza, Palestinian artist Basel El-Maqosui has another name for the places where he has sought shelter: artist residencies.

Each time he has been forced to move, he says, he has carried his paints and sketchbooks with him, turning another temporary shelter into a studio.

“When you are driven from your home once, it is called displacement,” El-Maqosui told Arab News. “When it happens 31 times, it becomes a journey through the geography of the soul.”

Now, heavy rains threaten the fragile spaces where he and other displaced Palestinians have sought refuge as well as the paintings he guards so carefully.