During the ‘Thinking out of the Box’ exhibition, Saad Hajo takes you on a visual journey where innovation and raw expression seem to go hand in hand. The cartoonist invites you to leave the beaten track and become more aware of the power relations that can destabilise our society. According to him, the cartoon is an art form par excellence for this purpose: sometimes it expresses itself in a certain tristesse, at other times it involves bitter humour. He chooses to use drawing to depict his humanist vision of a world increasingly dominated by technology.

Saad Hajo: "Humour is a necessity, it is the foundation of being human. I believe laughter and feeling good go together. I am a happy person myself. My name Saad also means joy and happiness."

Hajo was born in 1968 in the Syrian capital Damascus and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts there. He has lived in Norzköping, Sweden, since 2005. He has been drawing press cartoons for decades, which in the early years were mainly published in Arab newspapers, but later also in the international press. He has drawn for Folkbladet newspaper, Norrköping, Korpilombolo newspaper and Courrier International, among others. He has won several awards such as the Caneva Ride Award in Italy and the EWK Award in Sweden.

He often brings his work to the general public in thematic exhibitions. For instance, he recently organised an exhibition ‘SOLD - Between Solidarity and Soldiers’ about the war in Ukraine . He has also published books ‘Take a Hajo, Take a Break’ (2020), ‘Suddkantig Satir’ (2017), and ‘The Country of Violence Is My Country’ (2009) and has been a judge in several international cartoon competitions.

The exhibition at the ECC can be visited from 29 September till 22 December 2024, every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.