“Onemillionhamsas” is an interactive site created for the show “Khamsa,Khamsa,Khamsa” at the Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem, Israel. The project’s goal is to create cohesiveness, a sense of belonging and positive momentum in a fractured, angry and dislocated world.
The hamsa, as an iconographic symbol, belongs to both Muslim and Jewish cultures. The belief that the hamsa can protect, has magical powers, and is a source of blessing has persisted for hundreds of years.
Graphically, our hands are all the same, but individually, each of us has a unique hand, full of singular differences, unlike anyone else’s. The mere act of adding the individual to the collective, of documenting the journey from the particular to the universal, is both healing and redemptive in a world that seems hyper-focused on separating and categorizing.
Onemillionhamsas seeks to create and maintain an archive of mankind’s very human hamsas. The project’s goal is to establish a free visual library which is enriched and added to hourly by people all over the world. By photographing and submitting one’s own hand, each person is confirming their place in the grand, human picture. This act is life affirming and rejects notions of separation reinforced by geography, politics, race, gender and socioeconomics.
