Multidisciplinary artist

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Manal Mahamid:

Mahamid (1976) is a multidisciplinary Palestinian artist based in Haifa and Dublin since 2020. She was born in “Moawia”, a Palestinian village.

She earned her Master’s in Fine Arts at the University of Haifa in 2006, which was made possible by obtaining a scholarship of Excellence from the university. She received a degree in Museology and Curation from the University of Tel Aviv four years later.
Mahamid works across multiple mediums, including sculpture, video, installation, painting, and photography.

A.M Qattan Young Artist shortlisted Mahamid for the A.M Qattan Young Artist of the Year Award in 2002. She is a recipient of the 2007 Delfina Foundation’s Resident Artist Award as part of the Riwaq Biennale, a collaboration between the Delfina Foundation and the A.M. Qattan Foundation.
Her work has been part of several exhibitions in London, Chicago, Cairo, Dusseldorf, Haifa, Ramallah, Um El Fahim, Jericho in over 50 group exhibitions.
She also exhibited her work as part of the Qalandiya International Festival in 2014 and 2016, organized by the Arab Culture Association in Haifa. Her solo exhibitions include; “The Tale of a Gazelle”, 2016, and “work in progress”.

Featured Works

Events

Event DateEven NameLocation Link
27.04.2027Lines of Flight – Solo Exhibition 27th April – 2nd June – Officially opened by Dr. Rory Rowan, Assistant Professor Trinity College Dublin.WaterfordGo There
15.03.2023Instant Modernism: On the Architectural Fabrication of Israel at A.M. Qattan Foundation in RamallahGo There
12.05.2023Hugh Lane Gallery – Basic Talks – Manal MahamidDublinGo There
2022 28.04 – 03.05The Solo Project Brussels / Belgium Go There
2022 01.04Salute to the Prisoners of FreedomBeirut / LebanonGo There
2021/22 15.10 – 31.03FREEDOM IS ONEWashington DC / USAGo There

Media

THE TALE OF A GAZELLE (2017)

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The Palestinian gazelle was and still is a part of my childhood. I grew up in a house where a photo on the wall showed my father, standing proudly next to the Palestinian gazelle. I saw the same kind of gazelle during a family trip with my children, only this time “someone” has decided to call this animal “the Israeli Gazelle”. It may be no coincidence that in this zoo most of the animals were contaminated with a disease that led to the amputation of their part. An image that reflects the case of distortion resulting from the game of role-exchange and names’ crossbreeding. A case that engenders a cultural and civilized state with an identity confusion paving the way to erase historical memory.


It is the human existence and the civilized patrimony… facing identity exclusion and distortion of the personal definition, which is printed like a fingerprint in the remnant of the individual and collective memory. This is where the game of roles-exchange becomes complicated, maybe even the most dangerous idea we’ve thought of until now. A game that aims to erase all differences between freedom and slavery, the killer and the victim, resistance and terrorism, the indigenous and the occupier, even between death and life.


Identity is often linked to conflicts, which are national, religious or political. However, the issue of the identity is a very personal one, creating a personal conflict only. It is related to self-identity for every individual, starting with political, social and finally sexual identity. It is the main hereditary substance for the free human intellect and the unique mark of the human existence. Hence, any trial to contain identity will certainly fail… despite the visual or current abstraction of the identity and showing it in shapes that differ from its initial existence… it is that mark that no one can change, it is the instinct of things as they were destined to be.

LOVE ME, LOVE ME NOT (2006)

PALESTINIAN LOVE LETTER – TRANSLATION OF THE LETTER ( FROM ARABIC)

For a long time
I did not write you this poem …


I dreamt of a quiet moment
in which I would stand at the forefront of the world
or at least at the forefront of Ibn Khaldun
and cry out towards the silent Arab world, which has lost its ability to express itself.
That I love you, but
the problems arising between us, and the barbaric Israeli attack on the south of
my heart
has ignited Grapes of Wrath in my pencil and I sat down to my desk,
to write.
Perhaps in a fit of anger I shall tear apart these words, or perhaps that will be left to you,
Yet there are still outstretched arms that say I love you.
Always on your birthday Manal, your twentieth birthday, I shall write in red, the color of the workers’ flag, I shall sing to you the song of Sheikh Imam
in memory of the birthday of a child from Palestine, I love you, yes I love you
in the act of the creation and formation of a wonderful person that is being born in front of my eyes, a different and wonderful person is being created, is forming in front of your and my eyes.

I cannot bear all of this distance any longer.
This heat wave.
All this resentment.
I am still not back from my journey of self-integration, I am drowning in a sea of aspirations and home work, drowning in thoughts about by stance towards the Zionist state and the way you dress and above all I am drowning in debt.

So after this long preface (which I believe) is more difficult than
the preface of Ibn Khaldun,
I present you on your birthday with this bouquet (on the following page):

This is what I think about you in the following matters:

Beauty: you have two parts, a pretty girl and a woman whose beauty plays with the strings of the sun.

Love: sometimes I wonder how you love me so much, even though you don’t love most people forever.

Art: you were born to be an artist.

Fidelity: this term in particular bows before you, for you are its highest ideal.

Stupidity: returning to fidelity, but with some reservation.

Friendship: you need to know what to give, so that you don’t get back things you don’t want.

Books: I have three books, which happen to be in Hebrew. I would like very much for you to read them, and hope you will ask for them.

Food: he who doesn’t” respect food, does not respect He who created. (Start gorging yourself).

Fatness: not fat, Ya Manal Alabadallah, not fat.

Expression: (going back to the book with some reservation)

Prayer: do you really pray?

Gossip: It’s likely you and my mother will create a strategic allegiance.

Trips: no… you’re fine!

Insanity: insane.

Goodness of heart: despite it all you’re an innocent child.

Generosity: not a great deal.

I don’t mind that you’re good at some things and imperfect in other respects, but what’s important in any case is that I love you anyway. I hope this year you will try to change the negative things and above all that you will keep loving me forever.