The stories, drawings and paintings for the children's book "Hassan Everywhere" were never completed, owing to the Hassan Hourani’s tragic death in the summer of 2003. What remains are tales, paintings and sketches that take us on an incredible journey in which we are invited to travel through different times and spaces. Hasan created a universal figure, one that embraces life, the natural world, and history without fear, embodying the wisdom of a well traveled nomad and the innocence and spiritedness of a child. His character espouses a tolerance and unity with the world he encounters, encouraging in both young and old openness and reflection on beauty in everything great and small.

Hassan espouses the idea of acceptance and creates new mythologies for our time which are not only represented in the stories but the visual figuration of Hassan, through the gestures and movement of the figure and through way in which the different spaces and places of the world are represented. Hassan is also humorous, his friends are the birds, bees, fishes in the sea and fearful beasts, while at the same time Hassan often journeys alone but makes his home everywhere.

The figure of Hassan embodies the local, representing the Arab traveler, while also being a beautified male figure. He celebrates and enjoys every place he finds himself in, be it ancient Egypt or on the rooftops of New York. Hassan rides the waves, is fed by the birds, flies on his magic bicycle, sits on the rooftops, always looking on to see the panorama of the world. Finally the freedom of flight and travel of Hassan in "Hassan Everywhere" carries particular resonance in the context of the confinement of Palestinians for whom such freedom is a dream.

This exhibition is organized by Darat al Funun, Al Balad Theater and A. M. Qattan Foundation.