President Macron Meets Maha Al-Daya, Palestinian Artist-in-Residence at Reid Hall
This month in Paris, Palestinian visual artist Maha Al-Daya, currently an artist-in-residence with the Reid Hall Displaced Artists Initiative, had the distinguished opportunity to meet French President Emmanuel Macron. The meeting took place during a significant gathering at the Institut du monde arabe, in the context of the new exhibition Trésors sauvés de Gaza – 5000 ans d’histoire.
The event brought together a diverse group of individuals deeply connected to the cultural and academic life of Palestine—artists, educators, scientists, doctors, journalists, and filmmakers from Gaza and the West Bank. Many participants were part of the PAUSE program, which supports scholars and artists in exile.
President Macron invited attendees to share their personal experiences during the war. Maha Al-Daya spoke about her recent projects, Mots sans poids ("Words Without Weight") and Cartes ("Maps").
During the meeting, Al-Daya presented President Macron with two pieces of her work. The first embroidered piece is a map of Gaza. She uses two forms of embroidery in her work—cross-stitch and filet stitch, the latter a traditional technique from northern Palestine. The president asked if she had made the embroidered maps in France. She replied, “No, in Egypt—after leaving Gaza.”
The other piece was Where Will You Go?, an embroidered artwork featuring the motif of Gaza’s jetty. The text is sewn directly above the imagery. The president accepted the pieces with appreciation, even rolling up the map himself.
Al-Daya explained that she had not created anything for six months during the war—no drawing, no embroidery. “I only drew with charcoal on my tent after cooking,” she said. “The color of the tent provoked something in me—it was empty, like a blank wall. So I began. During the war, there was so much time. No internet. No phone. Just time. I listened to the bombs. I watched the children.”
She added: “When we moved to Cairo, I still saw Gaza destroyed and children dying. My daughter, who studies art history in Türkiye, cannot return to Gaza because of the closure of the crossings and the repeated wars. When I left Gaza, I brought my father with me, hoping to return after a few days. But after being displaced from Jaffa, he died in Rafah, and was buried there.”
Where Will You Go?
Before the war, Al-Daya lived in the city center of Gaza in Quartier El Rimal. Her home and studio were decorated with her embroidery. She embroiders Palestinian symbols everywhere, using a mixture of traditional Palestinian and other embroidery styles.
When the war began, she and her family fled, each taking only two outfits, thinking they would return in five days. They planned to buy more clothes in Khan Younis. They left behind everything—her artworks, her papers, even the family pets. Two birds, Za’atar and Cookie, stayed with a cousin. Their turtle, Soso, remained at the house for 15 months, without protection or food. When her husband returned, the turtle greeted him, as if it had been waiting.
The lot in front of their apartment building was bombed, flattening both an old structure and a 15-story building. Now, the view from their former living room and studio is a flat expanse of dirt covered with white tents.
The family stayed at Al-Daya’s cousin’s house in Khan Younis for two months—until it was bombed. Her cousin lost both legs in the explosion. “I was downstairs. I woke up, took my daughters with my father, and we left the house. I was worried about my son and husband upstairs.” A window had shattered over her son during the blast.
Al-Daya recounted visiting her nephew in Gaza and seeing a young girl with no feet. “I remember bringing my son to visit Adam. He saw an ice cream vendor. We had no medicine, food was scarce and expensive. He was still shaken by the bombing but I bought him the ice cream. Later, back at the tent, he told my daughter Yaffa. She asked if I could take her to Rafah so she could have ice cream too.”
After that, the family moved to the western coast of Khan Younis. They lived there for four months—two of which were particularly dangerous. The first tent they stayed in was plastic. When it rained, water pooled beneath them as they slept on the ground. It was bitterly cold. Later, as Israeli troops approached, they were forced to move again.
“My children once had a good, dignified life. But during the war, they were deprived of everything. They survived the first time. I don’t want this to happen again. I left—for them. For their future, for their education.”
Al-Daya is currently hosted at Reid Hall in Paris as part of the PAUSE program, supported by the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, the Columbia Global Paris Center, and Sciences Po.
President Macron was accompanied at the event by Minister of Culture Rachida Dati, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot, and Hani El Hayek, the Palestinian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities. Ambassadors from several Arab nations also attended, including H.E. Hala Abou Hassira, Ambassador of Palestine to France. Macron spent time with attendees, listening attentively to personal stories and testimonies from the Palestinian participants, including Al-Daya.
The occasion marked the opening of Trésors sauvés de Gaza, running from April 3 to November 2, 2025. The exhibition showcases archaeological treasures from Gaza—artifacts that have survived centuries of turmoil and now stand as testaments to the region’s cultural heritage and resilience. It is a joint project between the Institut du monde arabe, the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, and the Museum of Art and History in Geneva.
Maha Al-Daya, a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, textiles, and contemporary reinterpretations of Palestinian embroidery, continues to explore themes of memory, identity, and displacement. Her work will be featured in the forthcoming book Narrative Threads: Palestinian Embroidery in Contemporary Art by Joanna Barakat. She hopes to attend the book launch and concert in London on June 10.