Name/Title
"One Normal Day" (2018)Entry/Object ID
2019.001aTags
On ViewDescription
Ahmed Hmeedat grew up in Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. At the age of thirteen, Hmeedat and his friends would draw on the walls of the refugee camps (“we wandered the streets of the camps looking for the perfect scene to capture”). Hmeedat is a self-taught artist who experiments with different media, including watercolors, acrylic, oil, ink, and charcoal. “One Normal Day” shows a relaxed Palestinian man, on a normal day, smoking his hookah. Hmeedat depicts, with a sense of humor, a fantasy about the future. In the background, we see the slowly decaying ruins of an Israeli checkpoint. Hmeedat shares a vision of Palestine where the Israeli occupation is of the distant past. The artist's rejection of realism in his color choices reflects his belief that peace for Palestinians stands only as an abstract future possibility. Hmeedat writes, “As a refugee who lives under occupation and restricted movement, I’ve learned to adapt to the reality around me and express myself with limited means. Art helps me to interpret the complexity of our situation into a simpler form that everyone can relate to.”
“One Normal Day” was part of the inaugural exhibit of the Museum of the Palestinian People (2019) titled "Re-imagining the Future."
Please do not touch the artwork.Collection
Permanent CollectionMade/Created
Date made
2018Time Period
21st CenturyInscription/Signature/Marks
Type
SignatureLanguage
ArabicNotes
Artist signature in Arabic in the bottom left corner, dated 2018.
