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Born in Syria and now based in Beirut,
33-year-old visual artist Majd Abdel Hamid embroiders fabrics he
collects and items he finds, from cushions to kitchen towels.
At times colourful and at other times just white on white, they
are designed as an abstract depiction of time and the places he
has been, touching on wars, political and economic crises and
the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It's been like an acceleration of traumas. It's not even one
trauma that you have. It's been quite challenging to process
what has happened and how can you deal with it," Abdel Hamid
told Reuters TV.
Abdel Hamid was injured in the explosion of ammonium nitrate
stored at Beirut port in August 2020, with wooden fragments
still stuck beneath a scar on his head. The embroidery stitches
in his "A Stitch in Times" represent mental and physical scars.
The show at an exhibition space of the Fondation d'entreprise
Hermes, at the back of the Hermes store in Brussels will be the
first showing of all his work.
Abdel Hamid describes embroidery as a "timeless medium", a slow
process of doing and undoing. One display piece, "Salt of the
Earth", show threads suspended and crystallised by salt. Another
shows him unthreading white bed sheets in his home.
"Embroidery is always used to celebrate the pride of a country,
the pride of the family, it's about motifs. When you embroider
raw reality, dramatic situations or violence, it creates
tension," he said.
(Reporting by Marine Strauss @StraussMarine; Editing by Philip
Blenkinsop and Alison Williams)
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