Landing by Maen Hammad Book Launch & Conversation with Dalia Al-Dujaili and Mohamed Somji

British Journal of Photography and Gulf Photo Plus are excited to host the Landing book launch by Maen Hammad and published by Huwawa books. Landing is a photobook blending photography, prose, and poetry by Maen Hammad, documenting the lives of Palestinian skateboarders in the occupied West Bank.

Dalia Al-Dujaili and Mohamed Somji will host a conversation with Maen and limited copies of his book will be available for sale.

Landing explores skateboarding as a powerful form of resistance to a headspace of violence amidst the layered realities of Israeli settler-colonial domination. Captured between 2015 and 2022, Maen Hammad's photographs depict the ephemeral moments of purposeful escape and the indomitable pursuit of freedom brought through a small collective of Palestinian skaters.

The book integrates these visuals with 22 critical essays, poems, and interviews. In collaboration with designer Roï Saade, the book is designed as a portal to the Palestinian skate scene, illustrating the alternative headspace crafted against a backdrop of violence and erasure.

This book marks Huwawa's inaugural publication and reflects its mission to foster critical conversations from the Arab world.

Maen is a documentary photographer and writer. He considers himself a dedicated creative, always encouraged to explore the imaginative and to play around with the mundane. Maen has been documenting the Palestinian skateboard scene for the last eight years and engages in reciprocal nourishment with this community. He was born in Palestine, raised in the American suburbs of Michigan, and is currently based in Ramallah. Besides Maen’s work in documentary photography, he is also a human rights researcher and campaigner. @maenster

Huwawa Books is an artist-led publishing house. We envision the photobook as a living archive of ideas and conversations, and foreground anti-colonial and cultural counternarratives from the Middle East and North Africa. Our publishing is a rendering of world-making – a space of resistance against othering.