IN/OUT Festival – The Triplet Code

The Triplet Code are Jordanian blues/rock power trio formed in February 2019. The group consists of bassist and vocalist Abdulrahman Ghabboun, guitarist Vivek Ayer and drummer Mahmoud Tayyem. Inspired by the great Rock and Roll Trios of the past like Cream, ZZ Top and Rush the band strives to push the boundaries of Blues and Rock and Roll with their high energy performances and
live improvisations. Since their first performances the band have created a lot of buzz around town. They are currently writing songs for their debut release planned to come out in 2020.

Members:
Abdulrahman Ghabboun – Bass guitar/lead vocals
Mahmoud Tayyem – Drums
Vivek Ayer – Guitars

IN/OUT Festival – Yasmeen Sabri

Yasmeen is an artist and experience designer based in Amman. She was awarded a BA in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins in 2014, and a Masters in Information Experience Design from The Royal College of London in 2016. Sabri has since moved back to Amman to focus on her own practice and manage regional art fairs, design weeks, and exhibitions.

Sabri’s passionate about creating thought provoking, research driven works and experiences, with a focus on social, political, economic disparities, and creative solutions. Sabri has exhibited in major shows and spaces including Somerset House, Sonar Festival, Amman Design Week, and had her first solo exhibition in 2019 at Wadi Finan Gallery. Sabri has also been featured in major publications such as Dezeen, Forbes, Monocle, and London Feminist Film Festival.

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Statement:

Tapping on the themes of play, appropriation, and do-it-yourself used in her practice – Sabri uses cheap and found material to recreate a “Playhouse”.

With a wooden skeleton and metal mesh walls (built from everyday material found in DIY shops), and found material/recycled plastic bags to create walls to the structure.

The aim of the work is to create a simple playhouse, simply build, with found material. Thus activating the conversation around play, recycling or reusing material, and DIY entertainment objects.

The concept is to recreate the much beloved playhouse we all know and love, something that is built by the general public, but can also be engaged with the public.

The aim of this installation is to argue for the importance of play and being proactive in creating entertainment in communities where government led interventions lack.

IN/OUT Festival – Tito Senna

Reema is a visual arts student.

Tito lives in Portugal and has a master’s degree in Arts and Design in the Public Space – MADEP, at the University of Porto. The root of his work comes from his urban experience with graffiti and his reflection on urban space. His work stands out for moving in various areas of visual communication, such as design, urban art and contemporary art. His work proposal breaks the boundaries of the wall and explores public space in an intriguing and thoughtful way. Tito uses art as means to open new spaces.

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Statement:

The “Empty land” work leads us to reflect on the issue of value in the public space. What makes an existing space called empty space? What makes a place busy? How much history is there in an unoccupied place? The squares and public spaces are usually built to assess the historical events related to the place occupied. When a space is considered ’empty’, it does not meet some value requirements. The intervention of Tito Senna seeks to draw our attention to the unbuilt space, without value, but it exists! – And deserves to be contemplated and gain meaning. The work of “Empty Land” seeks to fill the void, create a neutral milestone that claims the existence of the place. Give the viewer the opportunity to create an identification with the environment in which he walks. The flag is the symbol of a territory, symbolically summarizes a place and generates identity. The artist appropriates this resource, producing a colorless flag and shape that propose the construction of a local history. With this, the work is filled with meaning by the spectators in the construction of affection with the place. The flag is not full of colors, but of meanings generated by the viewer’s reflection on space.

IN/OUT Festival – Studio 8

Studio 8 is a non-profit company based in Amman, Jordan. It is a capacity building project that creates forward-thinking, cutting-edge dance works.

It also is an educational project that provides training and provides resources that help performing artists to develop sustainable, prosperous careers

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Statement:

The Laban icosahedron is one of the most renowned physical structures in dance.

It is named after Rudolf Laban (1879 – 1958), who applied the five regular 3D objects to “harmonic” movement sequences, named “scales”.

The icosahedron, upon which Laban based his scales of movement upon, has been used in choreography as a framework for dance routines for many decades.

Mechanics of Movement is a live dance performance inspired by Laban movement analysis, with the icosahedron forms the focal point of the piece, with four performers explore the underlying principles of movement

IN/OUT Festival – Sondos Mahdy

Sondos Mahdy is a London-based sculptor, she was born in 1996 in Britain. Sondos had First Class Honors in a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Sculpture, at the Camberwell College of Arts (University of the Arts London) she participated in several group exhibitions in London.

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Statement:

Her work explores the aesthetics of pixelated images of violence that are circulated on the internet and TV. In order to explore a rarely explored phenomena, its center being marginalized with violent surroundings. The phenomena of fragmented pixels forever buried in the past and the everyday. This is explored through Sculpture, installation and digital painting.

“We are surrounded with pixelated low-quality images of violence that circulate on our newspapers, TV channels, and online platforms. What interests us is what is hidden in these images they suppress all other dimensions including space, sound, depth and even time. Thus, these images blur the line between fiction and reality. These images reveal an underworld that we are constantly avoiding yet they are an ever-present part of our daily lives. For all the imprisoned and disappeared, these images act as visual testimonies that legitimize their witness-hood as they verify the existence of these brutal realities of the marginalized”.

“It feels as though these moments are happening on a different time-line simultaneous to our lives. We have become desensitized to these images yet when we are forced to confront them, their reality edges closer to ours. It becomes clear that beneath this avoidance, we are troubled by the familiarity and proximity of these images. But in some sense this aesthetic and the conditions of these images are truthful to the distortion of our harsh reality. We see an affinity with these images, as their visual conditions eco our daily life. We begin to recognize object, places, materials or even body language as something that we are familiar with”.

IN/OUT Festival – Shams Team for Arts

Shams team for Arts is a theatrical team comprising a group of talents of both genders with ages between 15 and 30 years doing theatrical acts aim to put up a Societal issue and the ways to solve it in different frames, whether comedy or drama.

 

Shams Team for Arts recruits the new members through auditions organized from time to time by the team administration to create an opportunity for the talents to express and improve. The team acts embrace issues pertaining to human rights specially women’s rights, children’s rights, right of education, right of life, peace and the many other rights that Contribute in building productive social individuals within the community.

 

The team held several theatrical performances in Jordan including “Street” play within Free International Theater Festival directed by the Tunisian director – Moez Qadeermm, Dhaheyeh 308 (victim 308) play on AlBalad Theater. bekaffi Dhareb (Enough Hitting-violence-) with Nahr ALOrdon institution. Baedni Sghereh (I’m still young) plays with Tadamon Cooperation headed by Former minister Asma AlKhader. Tghaiarna (We’ve Changed) play on Jordan Kuwait Bank Theater.

IN/OUT Festival – Ryuji Yamaguchi, Alaeddin Rahmeh & Asem Al Khoja

1000 Gifts of Dance is a community art exchange between the movement artist, who performs an improvised dance in a public space, and a passerby who volunteers as a smartphone video artist. A total of 1000 exchanges will be initiated throughout the Jebel Lweibdeh and Abdali neighborhoods by numerous movement artists. The compiled video recordings will be screened publicly, promoting a culture of generosity, play, and community. Anybody is welcome to join the project as a movement artist or video artist regardless of experience level, genre, style, age, gender, or ability.

 

How can dance act as a bridge to build common experiences and communion in a neighborhood? How does inclusion of a volunteer video artist in the creative process influence the experience of the video artist or the performer? How can dance in public spaces shed new light on spaces of habitual activities?

 

Ryuji Yamaguchi (dancer, choreographer, educator), currently based in Madaba, Jordan, was born in Japan and spent much of his early life between Japan and the US. After graduating from Harvard University in 2003 with a degree in East Asian Studies, Ryuji moved to New York, where he presented his own work, performed with various artists, and worked extensively with Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks. In 2007, Ryuji was invited to Jordan as the dean of residential life and director of dance, to open a new coeducational boarding high school, King’s Academy. Since then, Ryuji has collaborated with numerous Jordanian and Palestinian artists, and has invited over 40 Japanese and American artists to Jordan. As assistant director and producer to Yoshiko Chuma, Ryuji has created six major productions in Jordan and Palestine.  His latest project “Vibration,” a duo with Hungarian dancer Rita Gobi has been presented in Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands, and at Amman Contemporary Dance Festival 2018.

 

Alaeddin Rahmeh is a Palestinian Jordanian artist specialised in Hip-Hop and performing arts.  He started his journey in 2005 in the streets of Amman.  Later on Ala found himself performing in contemporary and theatrical dances.  Today Ala is a performing arts activist, choreographer, and founder of Underground Amman, where he creates spaces for new and non-traditional expressions of art.

 

Asem Al Khoja began his artistic career in 2014.  After completing his degree in architecture, and while pursing graphic design, he discovered movement arts, especially breakdancing.  Finding the capacity in his body to do power moves, he began exploring acrobatic movements.  His repertoire includes stilts, unicycles, slackline, diabolo, cyr wheel.  A master of juggling, he is currently working on 5 clubs. Asem is also involved in the Red Noses International Jordan since 2018, where he is clowning in different hospitals. Co-founder of Circus House Jordan, he manages a space dedicated to circus, and teaches circus skills to children and adults.

 

Concept/Direction: Ryuji Yamaguchi

Co-Directors: Alaeddin Rahmeh, Asem Al Khoja

IN/OUT Festival – Reema Shatat

Reema is a visual arts student.

“I visualize my feelings and their existence in daily scenery that I encounter, it makes me able to recall past feelings and places whenever I feel the need to, and that’s how I share things”.

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Statement:

What would happen if the whole world becomes your bedroom?

A fetus can spend around 40 weeks in a mother’s womb with all their survival needs provided to them.

From the moment a newborn take their first breath in the outside the parents immediately make sure and somehow simulate the womb’s conditions in their new environment, their home, their bedroom. Later on, the world becomes this womb and a human who start exploring how to adapt with this new home, this new bedroom. They start looking for those private and intimate places that they can feel safe at.

 

“My project is an invitation for people to explore their native womb with me through a bed, to think of these intimate and personal yet so pure actions; having a breakdown or maybe doing a happy dance, getting dressed and undressed, falling asleep to dream then waking up, folding your sheets or just leaving them”.

Photography: Hiba Nabulsi

IN/OUT Festival – Rania Atef

Rania Atef born in 1988, is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose work explores the notions of play and craft across a wide range of mediums including: painting, sculpture, installation and video. She obtained her BA in Product Design from the Faculty of Applied Arts (2011) and now she is enrolled in MASS Alexandria 2018/ 2019 program for Contemporary Art. Her practice has started with the experimentation of three dimensional forms and installations through using and combining different materials. And her work mainly focuses on the infrastructure of the social implications of life experience which affects human behavior and attitude. She has participated in a number of local/international exhibitions and festivals in Egypt, The Netherlands, India and South Africa.

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Statement:

Many are watching the rapid development of information technology and the large availability of such a large number of ports, which makes us wonder and think about the education systems in the Arab region and its relation with the students. Are they consistent with this amount of knowledge being transferred? Are these systems contrary to what is happening globally, and thus create a gap between students and places of education such as schools and universities, resulting in separation between them. Nowadays you can find a clear disconnection between students and places of education, where students do not feel they belong to these places although they go and attend and exist with their bodies, while their minds seem to be connected elsewhere. And this leads us to question the ways of teaching and the curriculums found in these educational systems, which deepen the feel of isolation and the desire to detach from the system. The project titled “Not only Ostriches bury their heads in sand” acts as a reflection of the feeling of being stuck and overwhelmed with stress, tons of information, and massive input we are being exposed to nowadays through formal education, which leads to disconnection, Isolation and the desire to disappear.

IN/OUT Festival – Paul Wiersbinski

I studied video art with Mark Leckey and Douglas Gordon at the Städelschule in Frankfurt (Main) and currently live and work in Berlin. My work has been presented in intl. Exhibitions: “RECORD > AGAIN!”, ZKM Karlsruhe (2009), “Encore”, Museum of Modern Art Zollamt, Frankfurt am Main (2011), “The indifference of Wisdom”, NURTUREart New York City (2013), “Risk Society”, MOCA Taipei (2013), “Monitoring”, Docfest Kassel (2016),  “Showcase”, SPACE London (2018), “Datami III”, BOZAR Bruessels (2019).

Festivals &screenings: “EJECT”, Ex-Teresa Mexico City (2010), SALT Beyoğlu Istanbul (2012), “DysTorpia“, Queens Art Museum New York (2012), Luminato Festival Toronto (2014), European Media Arts Festival, Osnabrück (2010, 2014, 2015, and 2017) and received various prices and grants: a.o. Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin (2013).

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Statement:

Mortal Toys – a performative AR-game about control and being controlled.

Participants are invited to join a performative game, in which they try out prototypes of video glasses connected to wireless surveillance cameras, while they are watched by the other participants. They experiment with transmitted body movements, improvised choreographies, are “controlled” and take “control” of others.

 

Participants are invited to join a performative game, in which they try out prototypes of video glasses connected to wireless surveillance cameras. Strangers meet in a semi- public situation and are asked to play, while they are watched by the other participants. They experiment with transmitted body movements, improvised choreographies, are “controlled” and take “control” of others. A hybrid space is created, in which the ideas behind science fiction films are combined with a playful approach.

 

The aim is to experiment with a scenario in which haptic and virtual reality exist next to each other, allowing controlled as well as unrestricted symbolic overlapping areas of language and image. This possibility mirrors the limitless contemporary play with money, power and resources. Ultimately participants will explore the violence of a society focused on algorithmic speed, which constantly pushes for the destruction of haptic and public space through an accelerated concept of time and efficiency.

 

The resulting discussion reflects on notions of immaterialness and intimacy, surveillance as a perverted form of care-taking, technology pointing inwards and the crucial role it plays in the here and now and its future role in social interaction. The workshop confronts these stories of self-dissolvement, our submerging, drowning and diving into the illusions we create, as we explore the origins of illusions. The word itself derives from “in-lusio”, meaning to enter a game. Supported by the Art + Technology residency of SPACE / Goethe Institute.

IN/OUT Festival – Octave

A local independent group from Jordan/Irbid City that was established in 2017 by 6 independent musicians with different eastern and western musical instruments, including traditional and folk instruments. The band is characterized by the revival of the heritage of music and culture by integrating popular folk songs with music and distribution of modern music with the preservation of speech and melody and not to prejudice them.

 

The band uses folk instruments, such as Mijwiz, Yarghul, Ney and Bagpipes, which produces a new harmony between and modern electric musical instruments, resulted in new music called the popular rock/heritage music.

 

The band is known as the first band in the region characterized by this color of art and aspire to spread it to the entire world. They began to achieve the first goal to have an independent recording studio in Irbid with a personal support and without any funding from any recollection or any artistic or cultural association.

 

Band Members:

Ahmad Selawi

Moayad Tahtamouni

Nael Selawi

Abd Mardini

Sami Ahmad

Amjad Mestarihy

IN/OUT Festival – NiliN

Nil and Lin, together NiliN or niliu, are two viruses, errors, qubits shaped/stuck in human bodies/forms. They perform the role of a scientist who takes an event apart in order to analyze/understand it and make a reconstruct out of it, without necessarily any effort in bringing anything new to the table. They feed on waves, light and sound, and play with them to make music in their free time.

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Statement:

The film performance will consist of a live conversation channeled through multi-projections in one space: one super 8mm (or 16mm) and two digital projections, where the three perform separate characters with different languages. «One could also be multiple at once» presents footage from three cities, landscapes and aspects of the everyday in each city, while focusing on what does it mean to be physically present somewhere, and what happens if one could have temporal existences in different places at once? – When does a place become familiar, and -like plants- do we need earth to grow?

Through playing with visual and sound aspects that affect human-perception, and by putting the audience in an active role of taking part in the film with the way they build a narrative, the experience of those who are witnessing the event /physically/ should be staged in which this film performance cannot be experienced behind a screen, each of the audiences could see different aspects of the conversation based on their position to the characters/projections.

Filmed between Amman, Alexandria and Cairo, the layers of the visual aspects of these cities will sometimes overlay, one image or a sound could become more or less dominant than the other, the sound of the narrator(s) alongside sounds from the landscapes would shape the way we see what our eyes are seeing.

IN/OUT Festival – Naif el Zaben

Naif is a photographer and art Film maker, born in Cyprus. His works experiment the connection between color psychology and human behavior, the limits of the mind, and mental disorders.

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Statement:

A contemporary performance art reflects the contradiction between the conscious and subconscious mind by an emotional, uncontrolled and stressful acts through the use of the colors pink and black.

 

Performer’s credits:

Kamel el Zaben, Naif el Zaben.

IN/OUT Festival – Mounir Said

Mounir Saeed is a dancer, choreographer, musician and a dance teacher. Born in 1987 and lives in Cairo, Egypt. Saeed Participated in a 4 year dance education program called Cairo Contemporary Dance Workshop Program (CCDWP). During the program, Saeed got the prize of excellence from Cairo Opera House in 2009 for his 1st solo (The Game). Before dance, he was a football goal keeper for 6 years. He participated in tours in Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Dubai, Morocco, USA and Spain from 2016 to 2019 after winning the 3rd prize of performance with his solo (What about Dante) in the 20th international solo dance theater festival in Stuttgart in 2016. He was a dance teacher in the National Dance and Music Academy in Rome in the period between 2016 and 2017. He participated in local and international festivals such as: D-CAF (Cairo/Egypt), Danza in RETE (Vicenza/Italy), Belgrade Summer Festival (Belgrade/Serbia), OnMarche (Marrakech/Morocco), Hivernales D’Avignon (Avignon/France), Acker Stadt Palast (Berlin/Germany) and MAPAS (Tenerife/Spain). He was supported by the British Council in Cairo to create his collective dance performance (Prophecy/Submission) in 2013.

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Statement:

Dante created his own hell, trying to describe the way of going down and deep, Dante created his own fears and created the cure, he was in the line between heaven and hell, everybody has his own hell like Dante, and putting the Cross or any kind of own principles on the chest, very wide and very red, we are all Dante, I’m Dante.

IN/OUT Festival – Miserable Noise Club

miserable.noise.club is an international experimental musical collective based in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. / Guangzhou, China / Amman, Jordan. Featuring members of Artificial Ghost, Lèng, If Signifying, CAssette and others.  Abood Ashqar and Shaher Majali will be performing a set of deconstructed tracks from miserable.noise.club’s releases Frost Confinement, Given To Heartache, Your Sky Is Corrupt and Dust Coated Departure. Accompanied by visual projections.

 

“It’s an experimental swirl of space synths and post rock dub drone. There’s a wacked out dub feel to all of this as if on a hefty comedown. If only all post rock could be like this.”

-Acid Ted Blog

“For those of you interested in electronic, experimental, ambient, and sound sculpture music, I encourage you to give a listen.”

-Composer’s Toolbox

 

Abood Ashqar

Abood Ashqar is a musician and visual artist noted for his involvement in international projects with a wide array of styles, including Post Metal, Shoegaze, Ambient, Noise, Avant-garde, Electronic and Experimental music. He’s one of the founding members of Artificial Ghost, Departure Archives, and the experimental musical collective miserable.noise.club. Other collaborations include Folk artist and illustrator Mamiko Ikeda (JAPAN), Antimatter (UK), Desperar (JORDAN), and Soulhavens (CHINA).

 

Shaher Majali

Shaher Majali is a musician and humanitarian who performs music for the sake of self-exploration while documenting moments and experiences with sound. He’s one of the founding members of Desperar, a member of miserable.noise.club and part of a wide range of collectives in the art-rock, blues, ambient, psychedelic, progressive and alternative rock scenes.

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Statement:

Our music have been featured and performed across continents all the way from New York, to Guangzhou and Beirut. As an experimental group, we value creating new soundscapes and atmospheres, but not necessarily for the sake of experimentation. We improvise during our performances, and certain tracks sound different live than the original recordings. Throughout our discography you’ll hear Noise-rock, Post-metal, Ambient, Drone, Dub and even Techno. As random as it seems, everything is structured and presented with a calculated and predetermined audible purpose. It’s just music.

IN/OUT Festival – Miramar Al Nayyar & Anas Al Horani

Miramar Al Nayyar

Miramar is a 22 year old Iraqi self-taught visual artist based in Amman, having been born into an artistic family, she was surrounded by art since childhood, she has participated in multiple personal and collective exhibitions and painted several murals locally and internationally.

 

Anas Al Horani

Anas Al Horani is a young Syrian writer, editor and translator, currently based in Amman. Born in Lattakia in 1992, Al Horani published a number of articles and short stories in several magazines and online publications, including 7iber, Al Jumhuriya, and The New Arab.

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Statement:

“Here/There” is a representation of the internal monologue the individual has in a public space. Public spaces are where the inner and outer interact, and the contradiction is temporarily resolved. Walking in a public space slowly, and without a purpose – or flâneuring through it – expands the inner landscape of the individual and exposes it to the elements. “Here/There” uses both the written word and visual material to represent this resulting fusion, and in doing so places the delicate expressionist portraiture of Miramar Al Nayyar in direct contrast with the circular, stream-of-consciousness prose of Anas Al Horani.

IN/OUT Festival – Mike Derderian

Mike started out by working as a journalist and radio announcer, at The Star Weekly and Radio Jordan 96.3 FM, before deciding to pursue illustration, comics and graffiti. Since then he worked as a managing editor, freelance writer, t-shirt designer/art director and online content producer. He is currently running his own illustration studio F.A.D.A. 317 from which he has curated illustration, comics and graffiti themed shows. Mike also publishes a comics collective called Fanzeen with local, regional and international artists. The Fanzeen logo is designed by Comic Artist and Friend Lutfi Zayed.

Under his pen name, Sardine, Mike has been spraying and painting the walls around his city Amman since 2010. Most of the time he paints in the streets on his own and at his own expense.

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Statement:

In the streets there are no middlemen. It is just you, the wall and the rest of the world. I love painting in the streets of my city because you are always inspiring someone to do the same. I keep telling people who ask how to do what I do: Get your spray paints, paints buckets, rollers and a wall – any wall – and get out there. Make sure you start out with a permission wall. Don’t wait for anyone to guide you to it.

The smiles I see on the faces of people passing by are the best feedback. Putting out a street piece that does not conform to traditions or what others think is my objective – I do the same with my illustrations. It says I can be different. I can break free from the crowd. You just have to be smart about it. One more thing: Always paint in broad daylight.

In the end my motto is “Spray the word… claim your city… and fight the bullies!”.

IN/OUT Festival – Mau Monleón Pradas

Mau was born in Valencia in 1965. Artist and feminist Curator, Phd in Sculpture, and Full Professor in Fine Arts, Universitat Politècnica de Valencia. Studies at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, Germany. Bachelor of Fine Arts, UPV.

She has given several workshops and conferences, as well as organized conferences and seminars. She has published several texts, books and contributes in specialized magazines. She has exhibited and disseminated her work in numerous museums, galleries and public spaces.

Her training is conceptual and her projects are transmedia, mostly using tools such as photography, text, video, and video installation, as well as sculpture. Her main research topics include social, environmental and gender issues (role, women, migration, gender violence, work and equality). Her work as a feminist artist and curator highlights a social function, putting art at the service of citizens through public art projects and social activism.

She has obtained several international awards and has been awarded a scholarship by different institutions working as an artist in residence in Germany,Brazil, Denmark among others. Her work belongs to prestigious collections, having exhibited in many museums and galleries around the world.

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Statement:

The Public Art intervention entitled #WomenWorldRights, is motivated by the situation of improvement of women in recent years in the world.

The project discusses the situation of women in the fight for equality. A simple question is set up: What would you change about the situation of women? Anyone can participate, especially women and men living in Amman, Jordan, contributing with their experiences to the project.

The project takes the form of an Awareness Campaign for Women’s Rights, within public art and social activism. This campaign is carried out through the realization of 2 fundamental Acts. The first Act is the intervention through big posters in the public space -especially on the walls of the school Dirar ben al Azwar, in Ahmad Shawqi Street, Jabal Al-Weibdeh district, but also in the public sphere through the social network Instagram. The second Act is a workshop in the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts. These Acts are fostered from the relational, participatory and collaborative public art that is framed within the so-called community art. Citizen participation will be channeled into both: public spaces, and internet networks through Instagram hashtag: #WomenWorldRights [@womenworldrights].

#WomenWorldRights re-evaluates the public space as a place of intervention remembering the history of Jordan in relation to the vindications of women, specifically throughout a photography of the public protests that took place in Amman in 1968. The debate on the rights of women in the world is put into question through didactics that bringing art closer to the citizenship.

IN/OUT Festival – Lina Salah

Lina Salah born in (1995). She has B.A. in Visual Arts from the University of Jordan where she concentrated on experimentation with printmaking, photography and painting which lead to the way of shaping her thoughts through aspects of hearing and observation. Currently she works as an interpreter and researcher for the interviews related to the primary rules of visual art and its reflection on human life, which got her interested in art installations and the interaction with it.

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Statement:

An interactive installation consists of several electromechanical devices that simulate the results of the individual’s actions and his ill-considered personal experiences which have open endings and their effects in addition to how they are influenced by the reality surrounding everything in the past, present and future.

 

The individual and the crowd in a space

The void and the mass

Internal chaos and repetition

Action and reaction

Coexisting with the past, present and future

The self and the other and what’s between them

IN/OUT Festival – Laila El Taweel

Laila is an artist, she studied at the University of Jordan. In her first year of visual art at the faculty of art and design, a lot of new genres of art were introduced to her. After that, she took Multimedia for her future three years of study. Currently, she decided to focus more on her personal studies and personal self-growth. She is giving a chance to try different media of art and design. Yet she’s still trying to find a way to visually communicate through what she loves most, art.

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Statement:

If we have to choose between black and white (as an example), and we say we want both, we’ll end up having an option we didn’t expect, in our example grey, with none of the things we wanted. As a human being, we have that hunger that never gets satisfied. If we aren’t able to choose and have the fear of losing one thing only? and afraid of making mistakes, we end up losing everything and feel guilty. This is how I reached to express what happened to me if you have two things and you chose both of them at the same time and/or place, you will get hurt by yourself and you will probably lose them both.

 

“My message is to give a push to others to take a step and make their decisions”.

IN/OUT Festival – Juman Nimri

Born in Jordan, Juman received her bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Yarmouk University in Jordan.

She held six personal exhibitions and attended many artistic residences in different countries, she has participated in many group exhibitions inside and outside Jordan, and several symposiums and workshops.

Juman’s works are exhibited in different International institutions, galleries and museums, like the Museum of National Literature – Bucharest, Romania, the Jordanian National Museum of Fine Arts, ,and the Gilad Museum of Culture and Arts, Jordan, the National Museum of Art Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Recently “The Museum of Contemporary Art” in Yinchuan – China acquired and exhibited a collection of her works.

She won the International Creativity Award from “La Rectoria Center” in Barcelona, Spain in 2009, and has won the third prize in the second photography contest of the “Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts” in 2002.

Nimri lives and works in Amman where she established “Beit Al Weibdeh Studio” and gives art courses for kids in addition to organizing annual group exhibitions for the students since 2008 until now.

 

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Statement:

This tent comprises of fabric pieces connected together with simple stitches conveying the unity of pain and worry, each piece was part of the clothing worn by men, women and children that once lived in freedom and peace. Each piece symbolizes a displaced human forced out of his/her land and home; it mirrors the past and the future, the scent of childhood, angelic dreams, and memories of a house where safety and stability prevailed. This was all robbed, an entire life was robbed.

This tent narrates the story of expulsion and scattering suffered by Arab people, whom in turn still build refugee camps and suffer injustices, homelessness and insult. The story started with the forced expulsion of the Palestinian people out of their homes and ancestral land, telling of a lived oppression and sorrow. Till this day the cycle continues from one displacement to another and from one camp to the other. These camps turned into cities and the humans living there are merely numbers in a counter.

In this work, I do not intend to represent the political climate we live under since politics and conflict are both a mysterious and harsh game that I cannot explain or comprehend. What I intend to express is the bare human life: the sufferer and the afflicted. I want to draw attention to the old/new phenomenon of banishment that families suffer from, turning them into groups of people with no choice but to be doomed to these horrible circumstances. I want to dream with them of a land and a home filled with joy, peace and tranquility.

IN/OUT Festival – Juan P. Ordúñez / MawatreS

MawatreS was born in Valencia in 1986, he is currently lives and works in Bilbao. Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Research and Creation in Art from the UPV-EHU. He has been awarded a scholarship by INJUVE (Madrid, 2015), EREMUAK (Vitoria, 2015), East Street Arts (Leeds, UK, 2015), Micro Interventions (Arts Santa Monica, Barcelona, 2015) BilbaoArte (Bilbao, 2013), the Basque Government (2017) and Ertibil Bizkaia (2019), among others. He has individually exhibited in spaces such as Espacio Trapezio (Madrid), La Ciudadela (Pamplona), East St Arts (Leeds, UK), 3Era esquerra (Girona), Sicart Gallery (Barcelona), BilbaoArte Foundation (Bilbao), Ma Studio Beijing (China) and the Montehermoso Kulturunea Cultural Center (Vitoria), Koganecho Art Manager Center, Yokohama, JAPON (2019).

His work began in the world of urban art and it takes conceptual place between public spaces, monuments and contemporary documentation. He is interested in how physical spaces influence the social events that happen in them. His projects seek to redefine what we observe, focusing on details that are not seen, and involving new agents of perspective. The projects he develops seek to have some kind of link with their context, whether formal, historical or social.

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Statement:

 

Mawa’s project focuses on the micro, observing small details that go unnoticed. Objects, situations, processes… Small things that help to build contexts suited to each person, feeling and emotion. Small spots, wrinkles or cuts that make each situation something different and unique. Separating everyday life from great stories and great heroes, looking at the small things that make the world a better place.

“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”

“I don’t care if anyone believes me” – Joyce Byers

IN/OUT Festival – Jafar Aljabi

Jafar is an Architect, and an installation designer currently based in Amman, Jordan. With interests in ephemeral structures, unconventional architecture, topics around Individuality in social settings, connections with materials and objects, the meaning of temporality and understanding the public and private space.

Jafar currently works at ARINI, a research based design studio in Amman and is currently curating the craft district for Amman Design Week 2019.

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Statement:

 

This installation focuses on the element of time and memory, by exploring the idea of temporality in the form of a short life span.

The piece which is based on a childhood memory uses nostalgic experiences to start a conversation and visualize our private individual relationships with the public spaces of the city.

 

The lentil Trails:

A common science class experiment used to teach children about sprouting. The process includes using seeds, a cotton pad, a plastic cup, water and sun, to simulate the life of a plant, using these tools teachers are able to limit the lifespan of the plant into approximately 10 to 20 days, which allows the child to create a temporary caring relationship with it.

Does this make the seed less valuable than others who grew in more common conditions?

Does temporality reduce an entities’ importance?

 

The installation:

Constructed out of wire-mesh, lentil seeds, cotton, and fabric, the temporary piece works as an added layer or a free standing structure placed in a public space to be observed.

Wire steel frames act as a structured grid representing the strict social rules placed on public spaces in Amman, and the seeds are stuffed in the cotton places behind the steel mesh. The ephemeral entity.

The installation process will begin by hanging the wireframe and handing seeds so people can plant them by hand. Which creates a special relationship and a sense of ownership between the public space users and the art Installation.

This piece works as a visual representation of an organisms ‘importance in the cities’ life, and the means we use to create comfort.

IN/OUT Festival – Drum Jam

Drum Jam is a drumming circle that includes harmony, euphoria, percussion and rhythm to the chaos of every day’s life that was formed in 2010. It includes five to fifteen percussionists. their aim is to bring the energy of life through drumming and percussion in each performance.

The performances are mostly attractive and entertaining and usually attracts many people around especially if it was a street performance where people can actually interact with the band and witness an interactive street performance.

The benefits of drumming have been recognized since ancient times, it is an extraordinary tool that can motivate energies and gather people around through drumming circles performances.

Depending on the show, DrumJam can also work with other art types like Dancing and Fire shows.

IN/OUT Festival – Doublelucky Productions

Doublelucky productions are interested in the invisible infrastructures that define our world: from high frequency trading to smartphone monitoring social media bots. They like to use the theatre space for making these invisible digital architectures visible and tangible. The Berlin based group has been developing performances and video installations since 2004. They toured nationally and internationally, they have been awarded numerous prizes, e.g. The Goethe-Institute Prize.

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Statement:

 

New machines not only want to know where we are, what we purchase, and how many steps we take a day, but also how we feel. When we are emotional, we are focused entirely on ourselves: in our affects, our true selves are revealed. Voice analysis, micro expression analysis, visualizing brain waves are valid methods of so-called “affective computing” to read the truth from the body, making the latest software operate like lie detectors.

In their lecture performance, the artist collective doublelucky productions explores this development of artistic intelligence in the tradition of polygraphs back to medieval divine judgment and looks into a future in which everyone carries a smart truth-finding machine in their trouser pocket. Christiane Kühl and Chris Kondek (text, performance, video), Hannes Strobl (music), Kim Albrecht (IT, data visualization). Thanks to: Adam Butler.

IN/OUT Festival – Deema Shahin

Deema Shahin is a Jordanian-Palestinian artist; she obtained her MA in filmmaking specializing in cinematography/lighting from Goldsmiths-University of London in 2014. Her work focuses on stories of the everyday, in Jordan and beyond; to hear them, write them and visually tell them. In the beginning of her career in Jordan, Deema played different roles in the departments of film in directing, producing and editing since 2004. Deema has also carried out training workshops on filmmaking for children in Gaza refugee camp and Southern Jordan Valley in Jordan, for journalists and bloggers in Egypt and for interested youth to learn producing audio-visual public service announcements in the world youth forum held in Quebec in 2008.

She has been exploring her idea of ‘Home is Where Mom is’; of mothers’ dreams with photography, film and text since 2015. This idea travelled to 4 different places so far. Her interest in dreams is taking many shapes and in 2018 she was able to give life to her idea “1001 Dreams” which was exhibited in Gozo General Hospital.

Deema was diagnosed with MS in 2006 and besides disease-modifying therapies, suppressants, diet, exercise and alternative medicine; she continues to find ways to exist and live well, to the best of her knowledge.

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Work Statement:

 

Love before ache, for oneself, the other, the system, maybe

To those whose oneself attacks them

The rooted and the uprooted alike, whole, broken, invalids

Auto-immune diseases are present in the Jordanian reality; PubliCast Me is an attempt to start a conversation against inexperience, indifference, shame or guilt.

Faces, realities and lives of people of different backgrounds that have a common wound, an autoimmune disease. In PubliCast Me, elements of these characters’ environments, objects, habits and what they choose to show to express what they want to say as noise and distractions of life in the city swallow the sound or force isolated confinement. Moving image is interrupted by architecture and circumstance; blackened windows eating up part of the shoulder: Cast Me; the stereotype enveloping the sickened.

IN/OUT Festival – Blues O Bantaloon

Blues O Bantaloon is a band of four musicians with complete different musical backgrounds gathered to create new sounds by producing Fusion Arabic Music out of (Blues, Rock, Funk Jazz and Reggae).

The band was officially formed early 2012, where Ibrahim Khries (Bass guitar), Bashar Khries (Drums) and Hamzeh Kalimat (Lead Guitar) used to jam in a small house located in one of Amman’s mountains Jabal Al Weibdeh, and used to experiment to the extreme with the music they enjoy.

Later that year, Alaa Khoury (Vocals and Rhythm Guitar) has joined the band to complete the experimentation for music and to improve the sounds the band always wanted to get. The Arabic Fusion Sounds, a mixture of each band member blends together to speak about the daily lives of an irregular youth.

The band has composed an unreleased album to be coming late 2014 to officially expose their sounds in a record.

 

Members:

Ala’a Khoury: Vocalist Rhythm Guitar.

Hamzeh Adiga Kalimat: Lead guitar.

Bashar Khries: Drums Percussion, and back vocal.

Ibrahim khries: Bass Guitar.

Genre: Fusion,Blues, Funk, Rock, Reggae.

IN/OUT Festival – Ayloul

Ayloul (September in Syrian language) was created in 2013 by a group of six students from Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), in Houran Plain northern of Jordan. Since then, the band has grown by building a solid fan base.

 

7th of March,2019 –Jordanian band Ayloul has just launched “Salutate To Al Ghor” Which includes nine tracks that is a blend of different Arabic singing maqamat and traditional heritage melodies with a new style that is closer to the cinematic imagination linked to lyrics that simulate the social reality of the Arab individuals wherever they are.

 

Ayloul has performed in many places since 2013, locally starting from their home town Irbid, Amman, Salt and different cultural centers and participated in many festivals such as Albalad Music Festival, and participate abroad in Egypt, Berlin and Denmark.

IN/OUT Festival – Areej Huniti & Eliza Goldox

Areej al Huniti’s interest lies in exploring the interrelation between individuals and technologies within cultural, societal and political context. During her studies she looked beyond the surface and the social constructs of the body and attempted to challenge the assumptions that suggest that digital technologies are purely instrumental. She looked at how artists utilize technologies to challenge the colonization of the body’s interior by the medical gaze. Areej’s current work explores the magic and seduction of reality. By weaving real elements with fiction she wishes to complexify reality, collapse geographies while imagining a different future.

Eliza is an artist and project initiator. Her solo and collaborative projects use digital, audio and visual imaginations and observations to explore ideas around psycho politics, post-digital identity and micro and macro collective dynamics. Her practice includes a variety of media with the focus on moving image and new media tools. Her special interest on the body of the collective and its relation to socio politics is carried out with her art initiative ZONA DYNAMIC, found in 2012. The project is experimenting with temporary collaborative working formats. it received recognition locally and abroad.

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Work Statement:

 

VOICES FROM THE INTERIOR is a mixed reality intervention with VR glasses and is a continuation of REIMAGINING LUNA: a social virtual project that attempts to deconstruct King Abdullah Gardens, an abandoned entertainment and amusement theme park in Amman based on interviews and imaginations by people in Amman on a possible future of the site.

For IN/OUT – Public Art festival the artists will use the park in front of the gallery as their main ground. The concrete structure of the park will appear in the 360° video as a bridge or a plateau that floats on water. It will represent the back of a fish named Bahamut, which is described in Arabic cosmography as the fish that carries the world on her back. We imagine the forgotten and buried river of Amman reappear in the site and flow from the past to the future. Bahamut represents femininity and worldliness and connects the female voices, who will be interviewed about their future and that of the city.

IN/OUT Festival – Anastasija Delidova

Anastasija is a German-based, multimedia conceptual artist who does audio reactive 2d-3d site specific video installations, such as map projections altering cathedrals and in-between real/virtual bodies in distorted environments, also costumes and set design. In 2015 she got a bachelor degree in media studies and English philology at the Ruhr-University and a master degree in 2019 at the Folkwang University of Arts in trans disciplinary design. She collaborates with musicians, dancers, stage directors and other artists, participating in group exhibitions, festivals, performances and concerts.

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Work Statement:

 

Certain abstract gestures move, at times irregularly and at others synchronized. Patterns disappear and reappear. Time does not matter here. Individual blocks move along the walls like a moving mosaic. Upon closer inspection, certain details of the room become recognizable in the photographs. The boundaries of space are further dissolved by means of sound. Using on site recordings, the acoustic criteria for space are simulated and transformed into surreal soundscapes during the course of the piece.

IN/OUT Festival – Amr El Maghraby

Amr El Maghraby is an Egyptian artist born in Alexandria in 1992, his work varies between installations, photographs and paintings exploring patterns of human behavior based on the unintended cosmetic effect of the development of human exploitation of the surrounding environment as a form of social activity.

He participated in many local and international exhibitions and won many awards, the most recent is the 2018 Salon of Young Artists Encouragement Award.

El Moghraby studied contemporary art at the institution of Mass Alexandria with Wael Shawqy between 2013 and 2014, he also has a BA in Painting and Photography from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Alexandria University, Egypt, 2014. He is the Founder and Director of Bab Ashra Cultural Center in Alexandria – Egypt since 2012 till present time.

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Work Statement:

 

“While the workers remove the remains of demolished buildings and the pedestrians on the street are living their daily life normally, I was struck by the strange mix between the interior details which have not yet been removed such as paint, wallpapers, modern decorations, fingerprints of my neighbors and between what the walls carried within themselves for years of old rust iron, rocks and stones in a form that shows the house as one block for the first and last time as an object dying and coming out of his bowels.”

This experience has shown me a unique relationship between neighbors, perhaps because this is the only possible framework that brings their traces together into one composition at all.”

IN/OUT Festival – Albaitil Ashwai

New-generation experimental rock band from the Levant of Palestinian origins, based in Jordan. Albaitil Ashwai are inspired by the spiritual journey of wandering Sufi dervishes seeking inner peace and completion. They capture the tenacity of classical Arabic music within a shell of contemporary Ammani essence to personify the voice of their generation through a well-crafted and colourful blend of sonic finesse. Albaitil Ashwai formed in late 2012 by Qais Raja (Composer/Writer, guitar and vocals). The band’s current formation is Qais Raja (Vocals and Guitar), Feras Arrabi (Lead Guitar), Saif Nasser (Bass guitar), Saif Abu Hamdan (Drums), and Ibrahim Al-Najada (Synth).

In 2015 they released their first EP Ya Aleem. Albaitil Ashwai then released two singles (Nesf Al Tareeq, Al Baz Al Ash’hab) in 2016. The first debut album “Nuun” was released and distributed in April 2018 under the label mostakell. Albaitil Ashwai participated in performances to a wide range of audiences in Jordan, Egypt, Palestine and Beirut such as (Redbull Local Vocals, Redbull Music Motorfest, Feed Yemen Charity Concert,Palestine International Festival, El Genaina Theatre, Jesuit Cultural Centre, Cairo Jazz Club and The Art Lounge).

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Statement:

 

Albaitil Ashwai pours mystical inspirations into their lyrics and compositions and serves them with a modern sheen, as manifested in their debut album “Nuun”. Nuun is an amalgamation of Arabic sounds intertwined with a selection of contemporary western elements that are a perfect reflection of the evolved identity of today’s Ammani youth. Sufi inspired lyrics weave through often dark haunting melodies, countered with psychedelic rock guitar riffs and stabs of reggae, all smoothly blended into well-rounded compositions and instrumental arrangements. Albaitil Ashwai delivers a pristine sound, ladled with questions and thoughts that go through the mind of a wandering human who reached enlightenment. And through Nuun, they take you on a fluid journey, ebbing and flowing between contrasting energetic tracks and soothing, transcending ones decorated with Arabic rhythms. Albaital Ashawi collect, preserve, and render the tenacity in classical Arabic music, maintaining its thematic image with a contemporary Ammani feel that transcribes the voice of this generation.

IN/OUT Festival – Alaeddin Rahmeh & Ziad Hajir

Alaeddin is a Palestinian Jordanian artist specialized in Hip-Hop and performing arts.  He started his journey in 2005 in the streets of Amman. Later on, Ala found himself performing in contemporary and theatrical dances. Today Ala is a performing arts activist, choreographer, and founder of Underground Amman, where he creates spaces for new and non-traditional expressions of art.

Ziad started his career as a martial artist at the age of 5 years old, Specialized in revered ancient forms of martial arts from Chine, Japan & Southeast Asia, but he was destined to take a different path after he fell in love with dancing. He was intensively trained in Classical Ballet, Ballroom dancing, Flamenco and Contemporary dance (Jazz & Lyrical) for the first 5 years of his dance career. Ziad is a well-known dance performer & choreographer, specialized in Tango & Tango Theatrical. He holds a couple of diplomas in dance teaching & studio management, dance teaching & learning methods from Arthur Murray International & Trinity College London. He’s a member of CID (International Dance Council) founded in 1973 within UNESCO. Ziad holds his passion for dancing seriously advocating and promoting tango dance in the Middle East and world wild, with great dedication. In 2015 he founded Tangostan Art Organization (TAO) & he is establishing a Tango community by the name of Beit Al Tango.

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Work Statement:

 

One way to survive a voyage is consciously tapping into the unconscious to conduct a mystical and sacred conversation. This conversation takes place in a different realm of the universal mind, between the self and the soul meeting up an elder and wiser spirit guiding it throughout mystical teachings of movement and sounds. The end result of this mystical journey is to find the path and the way back to this realm of existence. And bringing back a treasure of wisdom and knowledge, and the only challenge now is the practical way to take this knowledge and wisdom to a three-dimensional existence, Govern by space and time.

IN/OUT Festival – Ahmad Salameh

Ahmad is an artist and researcher who cooks in between. He received his BA in visual arts from Jordan University studied drawing and painting at the Institute of Fine Arts, along with clothes-making in Amman, Jordan. His artistic practice is centered on deconstructing the quotidian or the politics of the everyday through an emphasis on its overlooked paradoxes, as an attempt to arrive at a consideration of the mundane. His artistic practice is also influenced by his passion for cooking, which manifests in cross-disciplinary projects that interrogate the production and consumption of food in relation to the constitution of space and social relations, as well as notions of absence and transience.

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Work Statement:

 

Zeer

If you decide to drop by, then do, if you don’t drop by, then don’t

It doesn’t matter to me, it doesn’t matter

If you want to love another then do, if you don’t love another then don’t

it doesn’t matter to me, it doesn’t matter

You are very well known with a high standing

I have much appreciation for you

But you leave and your love affairs are not allowed

And your excuses will not work with me

 

Twelve pairs of shoes:

If you pity me, then do. if you don’t, then don’t

It’s not easy for me, I don’t care

If you want to fight, lets!

If you don’t, that’s even better

That is not the issue, it’s not even an issue

Your love is selfish, certainly

And you think you are the only one and you’re stubborn

You say lonely and stubborn

What are you looking for?

Did you find it?

You are pushing it to the edge. the situation is tough

If you’re honest or not

What difference does it make!

That is not the issue, it’s not even an issue

If it matters to me then it matters, it doesn’t matter then it doesn’t

That is not the issue, it’s not even an issue

 

Waddima:

This song began

Since we have been at odds for six thousand years

And if time allows it would be kept a secret international scandal

If my night was ruined let it be ruined, if not…it’s a blessing.

You are not my night and this is not a story

IN/OUT Festival

IN/OUT Jordan Public Art Festival 

“An art, by and for the people, in the common space that is the street.” 

IN/OUT, International public art festival is an initiative from FACTORY for cultural mediation to establish new ways of thinking about the relationship between art, society, public, museums and institutions. This year’s festival includes 33 art projects selected from more than 100 participating projects from Jordan and abroad. All projects are selected by an international scientific committee through an open call from FACTORY by the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts. The program is implemented with workshops and talks always in search of mediation for the democratization of culture.
All projects come from different backgrounds of art, performance, music, contemporary dance, video art, projections, photography, sculpture, installations and graffiti, all going around social, economic and environmental topics that touch the local community, to be implemented in public areas in Jabal Al Weibdeh and Abdali district to be available to the public throughout the festival period.

In the infinity of small contacts that occur in the street, on the sidewalk, in the pharmacy, in the kiosk, each banal in itself, a sensitivity arises altogether for the “public” character of individuals, a social network of respect and trust. -Jane Jacobs

Due to our believe that a creative society builds bridges and not walls, we seek through the inclusion of workshops and talks, to bring a heterogeneous audience to share, experience and participate in IN/OUT. We are committed to a democratic public art, from and for citizens, in a specific social and spatial environment, in search of dialogue.

 

Participating Artists:

Asem Al Khojah, Alaeddin Pasha, Anas Al Horani, Ahmad Salameh, Amr El Maghraby, Albaitil Ashwai, Areej Huniti, Ayloul, Anastasija Delidova, Blues O’ Bantaloon, Deema Shahin, Drum Jam, doublelucky productions, Eliza Goldox, Elena Monleon (Mau), Jafar Aljabi, Juman Nimri, Juan Pablo (MawaTres), Laila Al Taweel, Lina Salah, Miramar Moh’d, miserable.noise.club, Mike V.Derderian, Mounir Saeed, NiliN, Naif El Zaben, Octave, Paul Wiersbinski, Ryuji Yamaguchi, Reema Shatat, Rania Atef,
Studio 8,Shams Team, Sondos MahdyTito Senna, Yasmeen Sabri, Ziad Hajir Jr.

We’d like to thank our sponsors: 

امانة عمان الكبرى Greater Amman Municipality, Shoman Foundation مؤسسة عبد الحميد شومان, EUNIC Jordan, Embajada de España en Amán / السفارة الأسبانية في عمان, Cairo Amman Bank, Markazia – Toyota Jordan المركزية – تويوتا الأردن, AbuShakra Trading Company, Live Audio Works, SAE Institute – Amman, مكتبة سمير وغسان Samir & Ghassan Stationery Shop, National Paints, Al Jawareh, MH University,

Venue Sponsors:

Boulevard Abdali, Manara Arts & Culture