Luleåbiennalen 2018
17.11.2018~17.2.2019

A hand I wished I’d never touched
Alaa Abu Asad
For many years now I’ve believed that if I forced myself to dream of somebody, I will eventually be with this person as in a love relationship. This indeed happened to me 3 years ago: I kept evoking dreams about a knight, and a while later, we officially became together.
This notwithstanding the forced dreams, I’ve fallen in love with others and they loved me back. Yet, we’ve never come to agree to (officially) be together…
There is this recurring dream which keeps coming to me since I was a kid, and it's never been that significant for me. However, more incidents lately are obliging me to recall it: A hand, or two, are harshly rubbing my face, annoyingly blocking my sight, and violently holding my breath. In my bed at my parents house, I’ve dreamt of our neighbour’s hand or hands – I can’t clearly remember – kneading my face as if it was a pizza dough being prepared for baking. Mum always convinced herself that that woman, our neighbour, practices sorcery, and that my dream is nothing but a product of witchcraft.
Yesterday, I went to a man’s house in the south part of the city whom I’ve been chatting with for a while to fist him, and I was asked to choose between black and ordinary white latex gloves. I chose the blacks without hesitation.

Alaa Abu Asad lives and works between the Netherlands and Palestine. He received a BFA from the Department of Photography at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, and MA from the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) in Arnhem. Alaa’s work is mainly focused on the image and its various uses and readings.

www.alaaabuasad.com
مُدَام
alaabuasad.tumblr.com