The P21 Gallery in London is currently hosting a photo series that is basically a masterclass in 'how to make visitors feel intense melancholy and possibly reconsider their life choices.' Alan Gignoux's black and white portraits show Palestinian refugees alongside the current state of the homes they were forced to flee during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war - which is to say, mostly rubble and silence, with none of the original olives, grains, figs, carob, or grapes.

Gignoux's subjects are either survivors of the Nakba (the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948) or their descendants, now living in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank, or Gaza. He made each a solemn promise: to visit their former homes on their behalf and take pictures. The result is a detailed visual account of what happened in various villages in 1948, how people left, and the generational fallout - because when you lose your home, apparently the trauma doesn't just evaporate after a few decades.

The eyewitness accounts accompanying the photos repeatedly mention the abundance that once existed - olives, grains, figs, carob, grapes - before the fields were razed. Where there was life, there is now nothing but a silent, rubble-strewn abyss. The vast losses seem etched into the subjects' faces, even as they look back at the camera with defiance. Because nothing says 'we're still here' like staring down a lens while your ancestral village crumbles behind you.