Landing by Maen Hammad
214 pages - 5 gatefolds
103 photographs
Softcover
Section-sewn exposed spine
* Book + Poster options available
Photo & Text: Maen Hammad
Edit & Design: Roï Saade
Language: English
Edition of 800
Published by Huwawa
Pre-order shipping March 2025
ISBN 978-1-0692040-0-4
* If you would like to pre-order Landing and you do not see your country listed, please send us an email here.Landing by Maen Hammad explores the lives of Palestinian skateboarders in the occupied West Bank as they navigate the layered realities of Israeli settler-colonial domination. The book offers a thesis on skateboarding as a form of resistance to a headspace of violence. Documented between 2015 and 2022, it captures the fleeting moments of escape and the indomitable spirit of skateboarding. Through an interpretive dance of imagery and text the book presents a powerful counter-narrative—a taste of the Palestinian refusal to succumb.
Produced in close collaboration with book designer Roï Saade, Landing harmonizes 22 critical essays, poems, and interviews alongside over 100 images.
Weaving Maen’s personal narrative with the voices of Palestinian skaters, Landing provides an intimate lens into the everyday pursuit of freedom. It focuses on the alternative headspace crafted by these young skaters. This multi-layered book creates a necessary dialogue between text and imagery, providing variant micro-stories within the connected whole. Against the backdrop of ongoing genocide and nearly a century of erasure, Landing presents a vital portal into the tenacity, creativity, and decolonial struggle of this generation in Palestine.
100% of the artist’s proceeds will go to support the Palestinian skateboard scene and mutual aid efforts in Gaza.
Maen Hammad
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.
As Huwawa’s inaugural publication, Landing reflects its mission to share critical conversations originating from and addressing the Arab world. Huwawa is planning to distribute hundreds of copies of Landing across the Arab world and broader Global South, a much more expensive and complicated endeavor than to North America or Europe–requiring unconventional distribution. Pre-ordering Landing not only secures your copy but also supports Huwawa’s mission to expand Arab-world photobook publishing by subsidizing the cost of distribution to these markets. Pre-ordering the book will ensure that the Global Majority is able to access and receive Landing in their bookshops and libraries once the book is launched.