Tuesday. 6:00 o’clock. Syntax office, Wadi Saqra.
It is 6:00 o’clock and the weather sucks. It feels like I am back in dusty, hot Riyadh again: standing next to an open oven. In April in Amman. I get in the car, comfortably parked for once right outside the building, and we drive to Darat Al-Funun in the mountain across in Weibdeh. Beautiful Weibdeh, even more beautiful to me than Jabal Amman.
In Darat Al-Funun, there are three exhibits opening in the same exact hour, in its three different “levels”.
Level -1, as I’d like to think of it, an eccentric graphic art mixed media show by Blouzaat, entitled “Expired”. It is the “artists’ definition of the dying infant world of today.” Imported vomit. Naturalizing capitalism. Dying new world. Pretty strong shit, and very different from what you’d see usually.
That’s what I like best about Blouzaat. It’s just different, and different is good.
Level GF, an exhibition exploring the inherited Palestinian narrative by Ala’ Younis. Sewing machines, videos, a room with a view of Jerusalem. I really liked the Jerusalem piece, except that I only realized that it wasn’t Amman after I left the room and was told that the sign outside says Jerusalem :)
Level 1, the Blue Room, had a surprisingly interesting installation as the launch of Aramram, a local online tv. I expected the “launch” to be a bunch of people sitting with microphones and announcing it, or perhaps one screen showing a launch movie or something. I was pretty pleased though to see that a lot of effort went into a pretty cool installation, with an awesome belt of typography done by my colleague Hussein.
After we spend a couple of hours looking at the three Darat Al-Funun exhibitions, we walk to Makan down the street to attend their opening of an exhibition called “A Photographic Conversation from Burj Al-Shamali Camp”. I really enjoyed the photographs. There’s something really beautiful about them, and really haunting.
Finally, we walk back to Darat Al-Funun where there’s a live music concert in the ancient ruins of the Byzantine church of the Dara for the launch of Aramram with Yazan Rousan, Hamza Araanout, Yacoub Abu Ghosh, Tarik Abu Qweik, and another guitarist I am not familiar with. The crowd of 200+ were really going wild, sitting and standing in every possible place in the garden.
(with Sagheer, one of my favorite people ever)
Then as we leave, it starts to rain. And the dust is washed away. A sign? Not that I believe in signs.
Open eyes. Wednesday. 9:30. Home, Shmeisani.
The sky is blue again. Both inside and out. At least, for myself.
