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curated di Roï Saade
Special event of the Middle East Now 2023 festival, in collaboration with Museo Novecento Firenze, the exhibition LANDING by Palestinian photographer and skater Maen Hammad, curated by Roï Saade
LANDING is an exploration of the power of the skateboard, the concepts of space and resistance. The viewer is drawn into the interpretive dance of skateboarding versus architecture and built spaces. The project shows how a community of skateboarders is created and, most importantly, focuses on the drive toward imagination. The exhibition includes images and text, and is intended to be a gateway into the daily lives of Palestinian skateboarders. The combination provides a comprehensive picture, of how Palestinians refuse in every way to succumb. Woven throughout are also stories related to the artist’s diaspora experience and his partial return to Palestine.
LANDING chronicles the skateboarding scene and culture in Palestine, and is the result of a long-term project by photographer Maen Hammad, who for eight years followed and documented the lives of a small group of Palestinian skateboarders. It is a collaborative look, documenting how skateboarding represents for young Palestinian men – including the author himself – a way to escape from reality and a push toward freedom. A radical form of resistance to the violence and psychological conditioning determined on many levels by the political situation.
Maen Hammad was in fact born in Palestine but moved to Michigan when he was two years old.
“When I returned to Palestine in 2014, after living in the United States for nineteen years, I brought my skateboard because I knew I would be an outsider. I needed the child in me, to remind myself that everything was going to be okay, just as I was searching for my home and my identity. Skateboarding leads us into a parallel world, where we can truly be a part of our surroundings. This project serves as a reminder that there is this pocket of freedom as we all struggle to find our landing spot.”
The landing to which the title of the project and exhibition precisely refers.
