Majd Abdel Hamid is a visual artist from Palestine. He was born in Damascus in 1988, and is currently based between Beirut and Paris. He graduated from Malmö Art Academy, Sweden (2010) and attended the International Academy of Art in Palestine (2007-2009).
“Palestinian artist Majd Abdel Hamid works chiefly through the medium of small-scale, often abstract and colorful embroideries, employing simple, humble materials worked with great delicacy. As a self-taught embroiderer, Hamid’s works are the fruit of a slow, laborious act of making, conceived as “sculptures in time” rather than demonstrations of virtuosic skill.
The hand-stitched works are artisanal, even amateur in feel. Each is a record of its own imperfections, hesitations, and omissions that leaves visible the raw fabric of the support. The motifs – often unfinished – seem to derive from the history of modern art, from monochrome works to geometric abstraction and expressionism. Occasionally, figurative motifs evoke scenes from documentary news footage, or portraits – reconstituted stitch by stitch, as if pixelated. Majd Abdel Hamid’s work encompasses both radical abstraction and an activist political stance, and offers a profound, open-ended reflection on the artist’s role as a mediator of social issues, through a practice that is by turns compulsive, therapeutic, and resilient.” Guillaume Désanges
Solo Exhibitions
2025
“When was the last time you daydreamed”, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Germany
“On White”, Majd Abdel Hamid, Grey Noise, Dubai
“Resonnances”, Kunsthalle San Gallen, Switzerland
“Daydreamers”, Cell Projects, London, United Kingdom
“Ode to the Sea”, Marfa Projects, Beirut, Lebanon
2024
(inside) a wave, a cocoon, Majd Abdel Hamid, Melanie Kitti, Signal, Malmö, Sweden
2022
800 Meters and a Corridor, gb agency, Paris, France
Muscle Memory, Centre for Contemporary Art Glasgow, Scotland
2021
A Stitch in Time, Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès, Brussels, Belgium
2014
“The Rhetoric From Within”, Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem, Palestine
Group Shows
2025
Na izmaku svitanja, Ethnographic Museum, Zagreb, Croatia
Art Explora, Photograph Pavillion, Greece, Barcelona
we refuse_d, Mathaf, Doha, Qatar, M UHKA, Antwerpen, Belgium
Near East, Far West, Kyiv Biennial 2025, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland
What the Eye Brought Back, P420 Bologna, Italy
El gesto que insiste (The Insistent Gesture), Casas Riegner Gallery, Bogota, Colombia
Sympnée Selebe Yoon – Dakar, Senegal
On the Street. Art Between Public Space and the White Cube, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz, Liechtenstein
TextileFictions,EESAB,Quimper,France
La fabrique des images, Lycée Condorcet, Belfort
The Posterity of the Sun, VIMA Art Fair, Limasol, Cyprus
2024
Les voix des fleuves, Biennale de Lyon, France
Phenomenon 5, Anafi, Greece
When Solidarity is not a Metaphor, Biennale de Venise, Italy
(Re)generation, Prix Reiffers Art Initiatives, Paris, France
Art Explora, Photograph Pavilion
Pavilion Les voix des fleuves, Biennale de Lyon, France
2023
Hirafen, La Station, Denden,Tunis, Tunisia
Kyiv Biennial, Vienna, Austria
Institut Français de Jerusalem, Qattan Foundation and Taawon Foundation, Jerusalem
Gabriel, Grey Noise, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge and the Whitworth, Manchester, United Kingdom
2022
Textile Memories, HEIRLOOM, Center for Art and Archives, Copenhagen, Denmark
La beauté du Diable, FRAC Franche-Comté, Besançon,France
Ubuntu – Textile memory, Heirloom, Copenhagen,Denmark
Ce qui nous pousse, Prospectif Cinema, Cinema 1, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
L’ Ami Intérieur, Programme Vidéo, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
Display of the Barjeelart collection, Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Splendid Isolation, S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium
The Memory in our Bones, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Dance of Life, gb agency, Paris, France
2021
Répare, Reprise, Cité International des Arts, Paris, France
Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti, Gradec, Slovenia
2019
Heartbreak, Ruya Maps,Venice, Italy
Touché!(gesture,movement,action),Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon
2018
Inhabiting the Mediterranean, Valencia Institute of Modern Art,Valencia, Spain
DEBT, Qalandiya International, halil Sakakini Cultural Center, Ramallah, Palestine
Labor of Love, Palestinian Museum, Birzeit, Palestine
Unweaving Narratives, Lecture performance “Rawabi Thob (traditional dress for a new city),The Palestinian Museum, Birzeit, Palestine
2017
In Search of the Miraculous, Kathmandu Triennial,Kathmandu, Nepal
2016
Unraveled, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon
VERNISSAGE Majd Abdel Hamdi and Oscar Guermouche, Krognoshuset Lund, Lund, Sweden
2015
March Project, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
2013
La Neumuller & Majd Abdel Hamid, Norrlandsoperan, Norrland, Sweden
“Shubbak” – A window into contemporary Arab culture, Mosaic Rooms, London, United Kingdom
Errors Allowed, Mediterranea 16, Ancona, Italy
2012
Qalanidya International/ YAYA, French Cultural Center, Ramallah, Palestine
2011
Ramallah et Gaza, Beaux-Arts de Toulouse, France
Escape, Lund Konsthall, Lund, Sweden
Email: Majd.hamid@gmail.com
Interviews/ and texts
Tamara Chalabi
“I HAVE AN ITCH, I HAVE A STITCH”
This letter is the result of my discussions with Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez for Palm
https://jeudepaume.org/en/i-have-an-itch-i-have-a-stitch/
https://ruyafoundation.org/en/2017/03/4727/
