Postcards, Stamps, and Steps: An Urban Art Exhibition at Makan and in Different Locations in Amman
Client : Greater Amman Municipality (GAM)
Location : Amman - Jordan
Year : 2009
Amman is a city cherished by millions of its citizens, ex-patriots, and visitors. Yet, Amman is also a city that has not been thoroughly studied and had only recently attracted the attention of poets, novelists, architects, and artists. The purpose of this exhibition entitled: Narrating Amman, the City Unfolded (Amman Inkahat), is to research and design an interactive and traveling panel exhibition about that City that grants voice to its marginalized and subjugated realities as much as also to illustrate and explicate its evolution, specificity, and splendor during a period of about a 150 years back into its distinctive, and yet, not fully celebrated history. The Exhibition coincides with Amman’s Municipality centennial celebrations and is also intended to serve as an educational tool for the City’s children, youth, and elderly alike. The Exhibition was composed of 20 boards; each addressing a particular topic or narrative on the City of Amman such as: The Genius Loci of Place; Amman at the Edge of the Ottoman Frontier: The Stream, the Train, and the Migrants; Early Urban Settlements: Markers in the Landscape, Amman; The City of Many Hats: a distinctive urban and architectural tradition; Amman’s Early Quaint Residential Neighborhoods: a tradition of tolerance and co-existence; Amman’s Discourses of Modernity: schools, hospitals, and the electrification of the city; Amman’s Early Public Spaces & Public Spheres: cinemas, cafes, and political salons; and Celebrating and Reclaiming the City: the Ammani cultural scene.