Homeland

Homland

By Faiza Afifi

2024, 1:54min

“In a land we call home, a fish navigates the confines of a small glass tank, its eyes fixated on landscapes in the last lines in the glass. Trying to reach beyond, she swims slowly and then in a frenzy towards the illusion of open spaces, only to collide with the transparent barrier. As we venture through the fish’s perspective, the land undergoes surreal events until it becomes an abstracted from within.

In this homeland, a fish imprisoned in a tank becomes a journey where the land dissolves, carrying within it the countless roots over centuries, undergoing cycles of death and rebirth in new forms”.

Language: None

Recommended for children under 14 years of age: Yes

Technique: 2D

Team: 

Directed, written and animated by: Faiza Afifi 

Stills:

About Faiza al Afifi

Is a Palestinian artist, Gaza-born and currently based in Paris. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Design and Visual Arts from Birzeit University in July 2023. Her work has been presented at the Palestine Cinema Days Refugee Film Festival November 2023, the Arab World Institute in Paris June 2025, Grey Space in The Hague February 2024, and Gallery One in Ramallah may 2024.
Working across drawing, animation, visual art, and occasional fashion design, her practice is open and evolving. Rather than adhering to a fixed medium or aesthetic, she is in an ongoing process of gathering and connecting strands of her work seeking new relationships between form, memory, and expression. My work is rooted in memory, and movement. Since childhood, my surroundings have been a
continuous source of inspiration. I carry two overlapping frames in my mind: one of the place I used to live, and one of what surrounds me now. I exist in the in-between where memory collides with time, space, and distance. This space fuels my work and forms the basis of my visual language. I’m drawn to movement, storytelling, and the emotional weight held within still and moving images. Whether through drawing, animation, or visual experimentation, I explore how personal and collective memory can be preserved, transformed, and shared. Art, for me, is not just a means of expression, it is a way of archiving meanings, bridging cultures, and carrying stories across generations. Having experienced displacement more than once, my work often returns to questions of identity, belonging, and home. I use visual forms to document untold narratives and to give shape to a sense of place that is both lost and continually reimagined.

More info Faiza Afifi