Tom Bird is an art director who uses photography as both a personal outlet and a medium to tell stories. Born and raised in the UK, currently based in Amsterdam and working globally.

His photographic approach was refined by documenting the growing skateboarding scene in the Palestinian Occupied Territories over a number of years. Capturing the fragile freedoms of youth within an area of hostile military occupation helped to sharpen his sensitivity and taught him of the responsibility that comes with holding a camera.

His work has been published by the likes of i-D, Good Sport, STACK, Table Magazine, Essay Skate Mag, and exhibited as part of group shows in The Netherlands, United Kingdom and Czech Republic.

ARCHIVE ︎︎︎

SERIES︎︎︎

1. SAHTEN صحتين
2. EL QUETZAL
3. THE RETURNEE العائدين
4. BEIGE BRITAIN

PUBLICATIONS ︎︎︎

CONTACT︎︎︎

︎ @tombirdistheword

︎ hello@tombirdistheword.com

A’IDUN العائدين
[the returnee]

2016 – ongoing

Following the mass displacement of Palestinian people from their land during the 1948 ‘Nakba’, Palestinian ‘right-to-return’ is one of the longest-running unresolved issues at the United Nations. ‘A’idun’ (العائدين) is a title that the Palestinian dispora assigned to themselves, translating as ‘those who shall return’. I adopted a right-to-return principle within my own work; whereby on each successive trip to the Palestinian Occupied Territories, I bring prints of photos made during the previous visit with the intention to return them to their rightful owners. Here are a selection of those returned so far...

EXHIBITED AT ISO AMSTERDAM, 2019
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Running on Cargo