Amman meeting points

StarAMMAN (Star)--The Amman Meeting Points forum kick started its first day of activity on Wednesday with a triangular program that connected three cultural spaces presented in Dar Al Anda, Makan and Darat Al Funun. A unique synchronicity in its designated events placed Jordanians on a time and space endeavor that allowed them to enjoy an artistic spectrum of photos, video installation and music in a single day.Supported by the Brussels-based Young Arab Theatre Fund (YATF), Mondrian Stichting (MS) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Amman Meeting Points is the beginning of a new a artistic platform filtering through Makan.Aimed at fusing the spirit of young Jordanian artists with their counterparts in the region and beyond, and to form a dynamic collective vigor of art skills, the forum will also offer the participating artists free studio space in a 70-year-old house with a view of the Citadel. The five chosen venues, which includes the above three art galleries, in addition to the House and the Royal Film Commission, will interconnect five of Amman's main artistic arteries lying deep in the heart of two of its most ancient areas. The connection will celebrate the burgeoning regional and international community of visual artists producing multidisciplinary creations. These creations will merge the boundaries between theatre, video and photography expanding it into a new universe, hence a new methodology of telling stories created in the process. This linking of disciplines will also blur the distinction between the audience and artist.Mounted on a large billboard, a central photograph captured in the center of an early morning Amman depicting drivers and their cars laden with the stuff of people's lives, whom are preparing for travel. What lies between and beyond is left to the imagination of a person visiting Dar Al Anda's black and white photography expose by Lidwien Van de Ven from Rotterdam. Van de Ven is an award-winning Dutch photographer who has also been working with film and video for the past ten years. She has exhibited extensively in Holland and Europe.The Asphalt Quarter that was held at Makan, is a video installation prepared by Wael Shawky, which premiered at last year's La Biennale di Venezia. The four-screen installation traverses political and social landscapes in contemporary Egyptian society as children work in contradiction, mixing asphalt on sand. Shawky is an Egyptian visual artist living and working in Cairo. Makan also exhibited embroidery from the Middle East and from Copenhagen. As a final act Kamilya Jubran and Werner Hasler's gave a live musical concert at Darat Al Funun, in which they performed their latest dynamic collaboration Wameed.On Thursday, Jordanians will have the opportunity to visit the House, where The Journey of Amal Kenawy from Cairo begins. A journey that will take a person through layers of light, cloth and color that transforms still photographs into a video installation through an ethereal world that echoes of pain while self-definition is questioned in relation to the ritual of marriage. Oraib Toukan, a Jordanian photographer and artist, was commissioned by the YATF to setup her first installation in the House, which is a historical place located in Jabal Waibdeh. Toukan's Untitled is an attempt to bridge generations and locations by portraying two housewives going about their daily activities in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.Untitled, is Jenanne El Ani idea of "the more the audience looks, the more it sees ... and the more it wants to know". Held at the House, also, El Ani's work is a video installation in which the image of a woman repeatedly brushing her hair over her face never reveals, but invites and withholds.On another level those visiting the House will experience Hassan Khan's Tabla Dubb n°9, which is a short segment part of a larger audiovisual performance exploring the fusion between Tabla and Electronica via visual investigations of various spaces in Cairo. Hassan is an experimental and documentary video-maker, who also composes soundtracks for theatre and contemporary dance.Continuing with a dose of films, the Royal Film Commission will hold three film screenings starting at Chick Point by Sherif Waked from Occupied Jerusalem. This will introduce the audience to a flow of two contradictory realities forming a juxtaposition of atmospheres where male models are willingly showing off their bodies on the catwalk and Palestinians being forced to show their bodies at check points.Following the bitter sweet of life An Egyptian Air Hostess Soap Opera by Sherif El Azma, will take the viewer on a character study of airhostesses during training; during which their enforced smiles belie their true emotions. The text is based upon the actresses' improvisational work during a two-month rehearsal period. Amman Meeting Points will conclude its activities on Friday again at the Royal Film Commission with Akram Za'atari's Everything Is Alright on The Border and Amal Kenawy's The Room.