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Ammon News - by Elisa Oddone | Jordan Times

AMMAN — Artwork by Jordan-based artists and designers are on display in the capital’s first art festival, which seeks to offer an avenue for artists to freely express themselves, organisers said on Thursday.

From Thursday until September 15, the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts (JNGFA), its park and 12 other art galleries scattered around the city will be hosting exhibitions and other events to give the Amman community a peek into the art world in the Kingdom.

“We ask all people to join the event, hoping to achieve an interaction between the general public... and the cultural scene,” Sarah Abu Alia, one of the organisers, told The Jordan Times on Thursday.

The involvement of the JNGFA came after recognising the need to “place local talents on the international map of art”, Khaled Khreis, the gallery’s director, told reporters.

At the centre of the Art Week Amman, which is organised by the Jordanian arts management company ArtMedium, are the exhibitions held at the JNGFA.

The group exhibition “Nebulous: imagination, dreams & identity search” aims at challenging the viewers, asking them to explore the feelings springing from each artwork, whether fear, happiness, curiosity or the anxiety that characterises the artists’ creative process.

French curator Victoria Gandit Lelandais told The Jordan Times that for the first section of the exhibition, she wanted the viewer to engage on a personal level with each art piece.

For the section “Graph Art”, Gandit said she chose instead to play with works related to graphic design and architecture, which usually tend to confuse at first, but a second look “show[s] how different art sectors perfectly interact in a single art work”.

As an example of how aesthetics and functionality may blend into an everyday craft design, objects by 16 local artists are showcased in “Design Exhibition”, which Abu Alia said would support the artists’ work in the Kingdom.

In the JNGFA park, an exhibition displays multimedia artwork and performances by seven artists who were asked to an “Isolation Device”, an object conceived for either providing or breaking isolation.

“Jordan lacks a proper cultural scene due to the weak economic environment and a strict social and political status, which do not allow much room for freedom of expression and boundaries in terms of how artists can develop their art,” Abu Alia said.

“Art week should be experienced by the public as a healthy moment they look forward to participating in again in the future, thus establishing it as a destination for art lovers and making it a recurring date on their future agenda.”