Hatoum was born in 1952 to a Palestinian family in Beirut. During a visit to London in 1975, The Lebanese Civil War broke out, preventing her from returning and resulting in her living and working for the most part in the UK from that period onwards. Experiencing the cultural shock of a new, foreign country, Hatoum began to feel out of place, and was compelled to re-examine her position as an "outsider". Hatoum's works often draw on her personal experience, while alluding to broader issues of rootlessness, alienation and social unrest. Hatoum's artworks are currently housed in several internationally renowned institutions and have been on display at many major museums and galleries including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; the Joan Miró Foundation, and the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing. In 2015, her solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou toured to Tate Modern, London and the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki. Her works have also been showcased at Documenta Kassel, the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, the Istanbul Biennial, the Biennale of Sydney, and the Venice Biennale.