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One year in preparation, this exhibition is the latest in a recent
shift by the Darat towards contemporary art, utilizing multimedia
technology. Starting the trend was Suha Shoman's video art exhibition
entitled 'Of Time and Light.
"Terrains" offers the visitors the opportunity to experience the
lives of young people through the eyes and ears of the three Artists:
Alma Khasawneh, painter: studied environmental studies at
the University of Michigan. She has always done some art using various
media. Her art is a space for story telling and self expression
of the personal and the collective
Ala' Diab, sound: studied architecture at the University of
Jordan. Ala' has been working for 12 years on various musical/sound
projects; his work is an intersection of the visual, oral and cultural
Yazan Doughan, photographer: studied architecture at the
University of Jordan. He is interested in the role of the visual
in the construction of cultural identity, and building narratives
through the arrangement of still frames.
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The
general concept of "Terrains" was, says Alma: "that every individual
is unique and has a story to be told. This story is told through
their hands' gestures and shapes. We take a snapshot of that and
project our own images and texts over it. So the final outcome
would be the culmination of the verbal and visual interaction
between the artist and the participants."
There were 15 participants who are acquaintances of the artists'.
Their interest and participation in this project are at the core
of its message of Collective Art. Ala' adds; "It was a humbling
experience for us to step back and let our friends 'be the art.'
It gave us the chance to interact with them on a totally different
level; to put them under certain conditions with certain people
whom they meet for the first time and watch them react to that.
Midway we had to alter our methodology to focus deeper on specific
topics and engage everybody in the conversation, it's easy to
get lost during a chat, while having fun!"
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The
exhibition is also an intersection of art, documentation and
anthropological research, as Yazan further explains: "This
project's basic idea came after conducting an experiment of
hand painting and photography at Alma's house. We decided
to expand that concept to cover new grounds and new meanings,
using audio and moving image to evoke different feelings and
mental associations. So we had to break the Project into phases
in order to be able to reach our artistic goals, exactly like
any other "non-artistic" project." |
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hope that this exhibition would shed some belated light on
the lives of young people living in Jordan: their anger, anguish,
joy, and hope. And tell people that there's more to them than
meets the eye, if it's only through their hands!" As the artists
concluded with a smirk. The exhibition runs until the 22nd
of July. It's been achieved through the support and funding
of the Khalid Shoman Foundation- Darat al Funun. |
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