Hopes & Dreams is a series of portraits of Palestinian refugee children talking about their lives and aspirations as they prepare to leave school into an uncertain future. Despite being scattered across borders by decades of statelessness and exile, Palestinian students share a common history and identity.

Award-winning documentary filmmaker, Gerry Fox, travelled to Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon with Hoping Foundation trustee Bella Freud to film some of these children at their schools and at home. Hopes and Dreams is being screened as an installation in Sadie Coles HQ’s newest gallery space, 4 New Burlington Place. The footage from each region will be projected onto a different wall to give a sense of the physical separation and geographical distance between these young people.Yet, in spite of their isolation, these inspiring stories reveal how much they still have in common. With this film, we hope to connect people here in the UK to these remarkable children, and share with you their hopes and their dreams.

HOPING stands for Hope and Optimism for Palestinians in the Next Generation. It is a children’s charity for Palestinian refugee children living in the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Hoping provides grants to grassroots community associations that are already working with Palestinian children in the refugee camps. The activities we support aim to improve all aspects of these children’s lives, giving them the opportunity to learn, to play, to build their lives creatively, and to express themselves through art, photography, film, music, theatre, dance and sport. www.hopingfoundation.org

For further information please contact Kate Wild on 0208 964 0777 or
hoping@hopingfoundation.org
Opening hours Thursday – Sunday 11 – 6pm

Hopes & Dreams
16–19 December 2010
Sadie Coles
4 New Burlington Place
London W1