42 Homeland Lost Photography, Memory and Palestinian Refugees

In this episode  Tim Bingham speaks with documentary photographer Alan Gignoux, curator Jenny Christensson, and long-time collaborator Chloe Juno in a conversation about Homeland Lost — a twenty-year photographic project documenting the lives, memories, and histories of Palestinian refugees displaced from their villages in 1948. Based in London, Alan began the project while living in Beirut, where everyday encounters with Palestinian refugees revealed a striking reality: despite the scale and significance of their displacement, many of these personal histories remained little understood beyond the region. What began as a photographic exploration evolved into a long-term commitment to preserving stories of loss, resilience, identity, and belonging. Now, two decades later, Homeland Lost returns in a new form through an exhibition at P21 Gallery in London, running from 2–10 July. The exhibition combines updated testimonies, large-scale photographic works, and an immersive audiovisual installation, creating a deeper and more layered experience of the project's themes and its participants' stories. Alongside the exhibition, the team are developing a self-published photobook that will bring together every participant photographed throughout the project's twenty-year history. Designed as a complete archive of the work, the publication aims to remain accessible, comprehensive, and faithful to the project's original ethos. Together, we discuss the responsibilities of long-term documentary practice, the role of photography in preserving collective memory, the complexities of representation, and how images can help connect audiences with histories that might otherwise be overlooked or forgotten. Homeland Lost Project Alan Gignoux Website Jenny Christensson Chloe Juno Website