Artists
Handal Alexandra
Born into a Palestinian family in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and currently lives between London and Jerusalem. Handal holds a PhD (practice/theory) from the University of the Arts London, UK (2010), for which she was the recipient of the UAL Research Studentship Award, UK (2004) and the Chelsea College of Art and Design Graduate Fund (2007 & 2009). She obtained an MA in Studio Art at New York University (2001) and a BFA in Painting at Boston University (1997).
Handal’s work deals with the politics of place, history, memory, vision, imagination and knowledge. She uses performance-based strategies to experiment with modes of mapping and storytelling that are multi-layered, mixed-genre and non-linear. She takes on the role of detective, traveler, historian, cartographer, archaeologist and urban drifter as a way to generate and gather material in the form of personal memories, notes, mental maps, visual testimonies and recordings of lived histories.