“I remember a post on a page documenting walls of Beirut that read, “walls are the notebooks of the insane,” it struck me how slogans/sentences sprayed sporadically can be quite poetic and a poignant commentary on the relationship with the city. During the 2019 uprising the writing that grabbed my attention the most was “ down with anxiety.” A year and a half later, after the explosion, cruel hyperinflation and mass exodus in search of livelihood, this sentence “ma darori hayk tkounakhertna”, (It doesn’t have to end like this) appeared in a couple of locations.

Its striking honesty felt like something one would repeat to themselves while trying to sleep. I have been recording these sentences.” (Majd Abdel Hamid)

Majd Abdel Hamid is a visual artist from Palestine. He was born in Damascus in 1988, and is currently based between Beirut and Ramallah. He graduated from Malmö Art Academy, Sweden (2010) and attended the International Academy of Art in Palestine (2007-2009). He works in a broad variety of media, including video, installation, drawing and sculpture, through which he explores themes of national identity and trauma. His artistic practice is rooted in the slow, repetitive, performative gesture, including embroidery and cross-stich on fabric supports, as a counterbalance to high-speed digital image production and pixels.