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Mayar Jamal Hamdan

@mayarhamdan

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captured, captioned, curated, & color coordinated | filmmaker, designer, researcher | @y2pstudios @thecolorarchives

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For a long time, the global art economy has relied on the Global South as source material rather than source. Ideas, aesthetics, histories, and forms circulate freely, while the conditions that produced them remain peripheral. Artists are celebrated without being sustained. Work is shown without being held. Value is extracted, then relocated.

What gets lost in that process is continuity. The relationship between making and place. Between form and memory. Between an artist and the world that shaped their work.

At Art Basel Qatar, I paid attention to artists whose practices resist that flattening. Artists whose work is not detachable from context. Whose materials, gestures, and references carry responsibility rather than decoration. These are not works that ask to be translated or softened. They insist on being met where they stand.

The question is no longer whether artists from the Global South belong in these rooms. They have always belonged. The question is whether collectors are willing to engage beyond visibility. The work highlighted here makes that choice unavoidable.
 The options have always been here. taken in Qatar - Doha by @mayarhamdan

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8 months ago

For decades, the fashion industry has taken from the Global South—labor, materials, designs—without acknowledgment or fair compensation. Luxury brands strip traditional craftsmanship of its meaning, turning heritage into fleeting trends, while fast fashion floods our economies with cheaply made, disposable clothing, only to dump it back into our landfills when they’re done. The entire system is built on extraction—of culture, of resources, of dignity—while feeding consumers the lie that sustainability is a privilege and ethical alternatives don’t exist.

But they do exist. From Yemen to Peru—brands across the Global South are redefining what fashion can be, without exploitation, without stolen labor, without erasure. These are designers who work with their communities, who preserve centuries of craftsmanship, who create with intention rather than excess. The problem has never been a lack of options—it’s that these brands don’t get the recognition they deserve. Supporting them isn’t just about ethics; it’s about reshaping the industry into something that doesn’t rely on our disposability. The options have always been here. It’s time we stop looking past them.

#parisfashionweek #fashionweek #eidoutfitinspo by @mayarhamdan

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2 years ago

What does music sound like when it reflects the times we live in? When it reflects our own languages? Our own cultures?

At @xpmusicfutures in Riyadh, I found an answer—an electrifying mix of rap, hip-hop, Afrobeats, indie, and pop, all created by Arab and African artists shaping their own narratives. In a time of turmoil and uncertainty, their music wasn’t just entertainment—it was resistance, a heartbeat that refuses to stop.

There were some artists whose performances felt like manifestos, tech art installations and sculptures exploring what it means to create something that reflects us, and conversations about the future of our music industries. People danced like they belonged to the rhythm of something bigger, dressed like they were embodying their own stories. It was clear: we don’t need to look outwards.

We have it all.

Because let’s face it—how can we keep listening to music that’s made for algorithms, not people? The glossy repetition of mainstream Western hits feels tone-deaf in a world bursting with stories that need to be told — particularly stories from the Global South. The artists I discovered here reminded me that music should reflect life, the messy, raw, and beautiful truth of it. And our region? It’s got an entire soundscape ready to be heard. (Link in bio for a contemporary Arab playlist).

This is what The Color Archive is about—capturing stories in every shade of POC. And this is just the beginning. #xpmusicfutures #arabicmusic #egyptianmusic #afrobeats #arabicrap by @mayarhamdan

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2 years ago

#AIFF taken in عمان by @mayarhamdan

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3 months ago

Consider these my Letterbox’d reviews. Full essay on Substack. by @mayarhamdan

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7 months ago

In the movies I grew up watching love was built from these big moments, grand gestures, close-ups on lines meant to last forever. Love in my Arab household didn’t show up like the movies. It was quiet.

I learned love in both of these ways. At home I watched my mom and dad share a cup of coffee and sit comfortably in silence with one another for 35 years. Love was in floral good morning greetings that filled the family WhatsApp group chat.

Affection lived in food, peeled pomegranates, hours spent stuffing koosa, a stranger cutting a mango carefully or being hand fed at a market. It was in my mom hand-picking spinach to make our favorite meal and my dad buying a million pairs of the fruit I casually mentioned I liked. It was labor given freely, without spectacle. It was fixing a plate for others before yourself.

It’s in paying attention to what’s important to those you love. It’s in the hands. It’s in a modest embrace. It’s that of birds flocking together.

I love our love, on & off screen. by @mayarhamdan

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8 months ago

Ahead of Valentine’s Day, I’ve been rewatching some of my favorite films. And look, I get it. I’m a girl. And I love Romance films. Maybe that makes me basic. But if being a basic-romance-genre-loving girl is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.

I grew up on classic Egyptian romances. These were the films my family watched together, the ones my mother and grandmother adored. Melodramatic, tender, full of yearning and pursuit, and built on emotional worlds that felt familiar. Love showed up through stolen glances, deliberate gestures, plots designed to earn a single “bahebek (I love you).”

In films like The River of Love and The Empty Pillow, everything revolved around that moment of confession. And even with all the melodrama, these stories stayed grounded in family, duty, reputation and routine. Love never stepped outside real life.

This collection of films shows how intimacy is shaped by the world around it. Films that do not pull the couple out of the world but place them back inside it. To explore how this differs from Western romance films ( and for full master film list) read the essay on Substack. by @mayarhamdan

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8 months ago

Beirut Design-Core

& a curated list of places you should absolutely check out:
📍Metro Al Madina
An independent entertainment space

📍Metropolis
An independent cinema

📍Barzakh
An independent bookstore with classes & a cafe

📍Plan Bey
A concept/book store supporting independent artists

📍Arthaus Boutique Hotel

(&others tagged in this post!) taken in Beirut, Lebanon by @mayarhamdan

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9 months ago

White as Color of the Year? Sorry — “Cloud Dancer.” Pantone, please bsffr. And I know it’s been a while since this color was announced, but commenting on their rage bait-fueled decision earlier would’ve honestly just felt like low hanging fruit (& likely what they wanted).

It’s no secret that I’ve felt Pantone’s trend forecasting has been out of step for years. And for those who insist “it’s not that deep,” let’s be clear: this choice doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Either it’s politically charged in a year shaped by the persistence of white supremacy, or it’s driven by overconsumption amnesia (considering the white/neutral obsession was only put to rest less than three years ago). Either way, this decision is not grounded in the actual reality of contemporary color cycles.

So, as I do every year, I’m making my own call, based on my own research. And my pick for Color of the Year is Pomegranate Red. (All research points to heading into a jewel toned craze).

Pomegranate is a hue rooted in richness rather than absence.
In nature, culture, and material life. Eclectic. Deep. Slightly gothic (which, notably, aligns with where fashion and visual culture are already heading). For many of us, this is the color of food, textiles, interiors, ritual, and memory.

If nothing else, let this be another reminder: rejecting Western mainstream ideology doesn’t stop at politics or media. It extends all the way down to something as seemingly small as the color chosen for you. by @mayarhamdan

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9 months ago

The TikTok girlies have come up with something called a personal curriculum. It’s basically a self-assigned study plan for people trying to learn with intention again and counter doom scrolling. & this trend feels like it was made for me!

My personal curriculum came about long before this popped up on my TikTok feed and has always revolved around cinema & storytelling. Recently, I’ve been referencing some of these texts for my visual research project: Does It Have to Be Cinema to be Cinematic (which I’ve share on here on fun!)

This curated list mixes two kinds of reading: guides for seeing responsibly (how images obligate us, how movement and space write feeling, how atrocity is shown or hidden, how Arab filmmakers rewrote the frame) and narratives that behave like films on the page. Baghdad through fragments, Beirut through texture, Palestine through panorama, grief through erased photographs, and war through soundscape.

Happy reading! by @mayarhamdan

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a year ago

It doesn’t make sense to talk about how buildings hold narrative and memory without also acknowledging what happens when those buildings are erased. The story told through these satellite images from 2023 and 2025 is clear.

I’ve written about how architecture preserves history, whether through alteration (Chadirji) or persistence (Buqshan). Those examples taught me that buildings aren’t just physical, they’re vessels of collective memory. Every wall, courtyard, and shadow carries traces of life, heritage, and continuity.

If architecture embodies memory, then to destroy it isn’t neutral. It’s not “collateral damage,” no matter what narrative is being spun. People can manipulate stories. But buildings can’t.

Destruction of this scale reveals the clear intent to deliberately erase and push out. by @mayarhamdan

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a year ago

My mother is an architect. I’m a filmmaker. And for a long time I felt like we spoke completely different languages… until I realized we didn’t.

This is what led me to the next part of my research series: ‘does it have to be cinema to be cinematic?’ This time, we’re looking at buildings. & in part 1, we’re looking at some of my favorite architects from Mexico to Iraq to Yemen.

This research question is shaping up to be a theory & so far it is: ‘not everything cinematic needs a screen.’ In this case, some stories exist in walls, courtyards, and corridors. In how light hits a surface. In what space makes you feel, even before you know why.

In the full visual essay on Substack, I tackle everything from archive films to documentaries & experimental films to fiction, but as architecture! Because some buildings are films. by @mayarhamdan

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a year ago