HOOPLAND

13×11 in, 33×28 cm

100 Pages

(Include stickers to customize the book)

About:

When I arrived to Los Angeles a little more than two years ago, the priority to find a place to move in with my family drove me to explore every single place in this city, literally driving miles upon miles, slowly looking around every single corner to find our new home.  Maybe you say – “Why didn’t you look online?”.  Because in the past, driving or walking around the new cities I planned to move to was the best way for me to find a home, and also because searching online you can’t hear the kids playing at the sidewalk, the palm trees dancing with the wind or smell the fresh grass cut by your future neighbors.

When I drive through a place that I don’t know, curiosity starts to be my passenger.  And this passenger speaks to me constantly – “Make a left.  Look at this!”.  But while I drove past ‘For Rent’ signs around Los Angeles, this need to find a place started to feel secondary when unexpectedly my passenger started showing me that nothing in this city was more important than basketball hoops.  Just like ‘Welcome’ rugs that you lay by your doorstep welcoming people, these hoops seemed to tell visitors – “Welcome to the city of basketball”.

It was also really curious that some of these basketball backboards were painted the same color as the house, and if you looked closely at most of these you could see that they had been painted over many times in different colors, some turning old and becoming cracked, beautifully cracked, like our skin as it ages.

Have you seen a basketball backboard wrapped by roots and leaves?  I have.  I was looking at a house with a beautiful fence covered in vines and the board was just there, kind of hidden in the middle of these plants looking like they wrapped it to say “Please don’t remove it! We are in love”.

Even after we found our place here in LA, my addiction to discover hoops continues, sometimes even to the point of approaching owners to ask about their backboards.  Talking to them provokes different reactions, sometimes a shy smile saying “OMG I bought it for my kids but they never used it” or most of the times a huge smile feeling like a challenge to play.

You can also tell the age of the house by looking at its hoops, vintage, rusty, reformed, over painted, almost hidden.  And talking about hidden, I love the stories hidden in these hoops.  One day while on my way to the market on a Saturday morning, a young man was walking out of a house when I stopped to talk to him.  His name was Ben and I asked him how often did he shoot the ball at the hoop and he said that he never did anymore, but it was never taken down because it reminded him of the days when he played with his brother.  I never expected that answer, and my silence was not only a kind of mourning but also a hidden invitation for Ben to play again.  His brother would love to see the ball going into that hoop again.

Just like this story, many more beautiful stories can be found and emotions felt in each page of this book.  Look at the images and try to hear them out.

I think every city has a heart and of course a heartbeat.  The one for Los Angeles is the sound of a basketball hitting the floor, ready to go through the hoop.

(The book comes with the stickers 🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀 to be customized and make it even more unique)