For more than twenty years, the Mekdachi family has travelled the world. Each journey is driven by the same curiosity: discovering new studios in which to record songs, finding inspiring places to photograph and film, and then setting out in search of a basketball hoop.
This search has become a ritual. Not necessarily for the most beautiful court but, more often than not, the simplest.
A stretch of concrete. A few painted lines on the ground. A backboard weathered by time. A metal rim suspended in the air.
Over the years, these courts have become one of the reasons the family travels. They have allowed them to meet people they would never have encountered otherwise. Some stayed only for a game. Others became friends for life. Thanks to them, each new city felt a little more familiar.
These ordinary places hold something extraordinary. They bring people together.
Across the world, basketball courts possess the same quiet power. It welcomes everyone. Age, language, culture, social background or profession suddenly cease to matter. All it takes is a ball for a game to begin, and only a few minutes for strangers to play as if they had known each other forever.
Basketball becomes a language beyond words.
Like music, it allows people to communicate without translation. A pass, a look, a smile, and a shared effort are enough to create an immediate understanding. You improvise, like musicians who do not speak the same language yet somehow play the same melody.
Two different forms of expression, but the same experience: strangers creating something unique together before going their separate ways.
This is the spirit that Lola James Harper calls Hooptime.
The photographs gathered in this book, taken over more than twenty years by Noé, Lili and Rami Mekdachi, do more than document basketball courts.
They tell the story of places that make encounters possible, revealing their spirit of sharing and connection. These concrete spaces become, all over the world, genuine public squares where humanity expresses itself in its simplest and most beautiful form.
They are places where you arrive alone and leave feeling a little less like a stranger.
Every hoop is an invitation. An open circle reaching towards the sky. A promise of connection.
For Rami and his son Noé, these courts have also been part of a more intimate story. Since Noé was five years old, the two of them have made a point of seeking out a basketball court in every new city they visit.
Basketball became a way of understanding each other differently, without necessarily having to speak.
A conversation made of movement, trust, closeness, and time spent together.
This book finds its natural continuation in the feature film Hooptime.
Where the photographs freeze movements in time, the film gives them a voice.
After the passes, the smiles, and the games come the conversations. The men and women met by chance on street courts across the world talk about how street basketball has changed their lives, the friendships it has created, the boundaries it has erased, and the remarkable ability of a simple concrete court to connect worlds that might otherwise never have crossed paths.
Some of these encounters continue far beyond the court, in recording studios in Paris, Beirut, London, Los Angeles and elsewhere.
Basketball players who are not musicians become, for the duration of a creative project, musical partners, gradually shaping the film’s soundtrack together.
The music emerges from the same impulse as the game itself: listening, trust, spontaneity and the joy of creating together.
Hooptime - Art Book
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For more than twenty years, the Mekdachi family has travelled the world. Each journey is driven by the same curiosity: discovering new studios in which to record songs, finding inspiring places to photograph and film, and then setting out in search of a basketball hoop.
This search has become a ritual. Not necessarily for the most beautiful court but, more often than not, the simplest.
A stretch of concrete. A few painted lines on the ground. A backboard weathered by time. A metal rim suspended in the air.
Over the years, these courts have become one of the reasons the family travels. They have allowed them to meet people they would never have encountered otherwise. Some stayed only for a game. Others became friends for life. Thanks to them, each new city felt a little more familiar.
These ordinary places hold something extraordinary. They bring people together.
Across the world, basketball courts possess the same quiet power. It welcomes everyone. Age, language, culture, social background or profession suddenly cease to matter. All it takes is a ball for a game to begin, and only a few minutes for strangers to play as if they had known each other forever.
Basketball becomes a language beyond words.
Like music, it allows people to communicate without translation. A pass, a look, a smile, and a shared effort are enough to create an immediate understanding. You improvise, like musicians who do not speak the same language yet somehow play the same melody.
Two different forms of expression, but the same experience: strangers creating something unique together before going their separate ways.
This is the spirit that Lola James Harper calls Hooptime.
The photographs gathered in this book, taken over more than twenty years by Noé, Lili and Rami Mekdachi, do more than document basketball courts.
They tell the story of places that make encounters possible, revealing their spirit of sharing and connection. These concrete spaces become, all over the world, genuine public squares where humanity expresses itself in its simplest and most beautiful form.
They are places where you arrive alone and leave feeling a little less like a stranger.
Every hoop is an invitation. An open circle reaching towards the sky. A promise of connection.
For Rami and his son Noé, these courts have also been part of a more intimate story. Since Noé was five years old, the two of them have made a point of seeking out a basketball court in every new city they visit.
Basketball became a way of understanding each other differently, without necessarily having to speak.
A conversation made of movement, trust, closeness, and time spent together.
This book finds its natural continuation in the feature film Hooptime.
Where the photographs freeze movements in time, the film gives them a voice.
After the passes, the smiles, and the games come the conversations. The men and women met by chance on street courts across the world talk about how street basketball has changed their lives, the friendships it has created, the boundaries it has erased, and the remarkable ability of a simple concrete court to connect worlds that might otherwise never have crossed paths.
Some of these encounters continue far beyond the court, in recording studios in Paris, Beirut, London, Los Angeles and elsewhere.
Basketball players who are not musicians become, for the duration of a creative project, musical partners, gradually shaping the film’s soundtrack together.
The music emerges from the same impulse as the game itself: listening, trust, spontaneity and the joy of creating together.
Dimensions
W 21 x L 29,7 cm
Page count
224 pages
Number of Photo
114
Cover materials
Embossed cloth-bound covers
Language
English & French
