16 April 2024
Majd Abdel Hamid
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Majd Abdel Hamid (born 1988, Damascus) is a Palestinian artist whose work spans diverse mediums—including video, installation, drawing, and sculpture—to delve into national identity and trauma. Based between Paris and Beirut, his praxis, rooted in slow, meditative gestures, confronts the rapid pace of digital imagery.
For When Solidarity Is Not a Metaphor, Majd Abdel Hamid is presenting two works, Son, This Is a Waste of Time (2023-24) and Safe Space (2024).
In 2015, the artist tried to commission a woman to create embroidery for him: he wanted to have white thread embroidered on fabric, but the woman told him she would not do it, adding, “Son, this is a waste of time.” Abdel Hamid ended up doing the embroidery himself, which turned into an ongoing series. Stitching repetitively to fill the space of the fabric with white thread—it is a performance of transcribing time, transcribing a spectrum of intensities. The artist counts the hours each piece takes to complete.
It has become an essential part of Abdel Hamid’s daily habits, providing him with a safe space, like being in a state of light trance, a retreat from the blackmail of images, news, statements; to withdraw but without retreating to a sense of denial, a self-care ritual with a compulsive eagerness to be relevant.
Initiated in 2022, Safe Space emerges from Majd Abdel Hamid’s inquiry into personal safe space amidst crises. Friends were invited to draw a map of what they deemed a safe place. Abdel Hamid intricately transposes these maps onto fabric using cotton and synthetic threads. This transformation from blueprints to tangible artworks began as a collaborative endeavour, suspended momentarily in early 2023 due to the earthquake that hit the region in Turkey and Syria — and seemingly never-ending aftershocks. The aftermath propelled Abdel Hamid into a deeper exploration of physical and psychological safety within his own lived spaces, and led him to realise that the notion of safety is temporal, impossible to maintain. An evolving narrative embroidered on cut metal from strainers, this project weaves together communal and personal definitions of safety.
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