In collaboration with Ahlan Jordan, the Arab Cultural Center is hosting a presentation that sheds a light on the modern history of art in Jordan.

– Creating Art History in Amman (By Elizabeth Rauh)
As Amman transformed from a small Circassian village into a major urban center, artists moving to the city from across the region often undertook key roles to make spaces and opportunities for creative expression in the rapidly developing city. While researching her dissertation, Rauh consulted a diverse range of collections and archives in Amman, including mosques, galleries, museums, and private collections. Weaving together various sites and art works encountered through her fieldwork, Rauh will offer a brief look at Amman’s complex tapestry of artistic identities and historical developments from the city’s modern roots to today.

– Street Art in Jordan (By Mike V. Derderian)
Jordanian streets in the past few years have been witnessing a strong and growing graffiti movement. The strength lies in the act itself: going out there tagging, bombing and spraying visuals and letters. Today’s movement has grown particularly since the Jabal Al Qal’aa / The Citadel, through an ambitious project brought to life by Alaa Qattam, the Arts Projects Manager at the British Council in 2012.

Mike V. Derderian, also known as Sardine, was fortunate to be part of the movement. Since then he has worked with many projects including Baladk, a local graffiti festival initiated by Raed Asfour and Lubna Juqqa. Mike’s talk will show how the Amman scene is growing thanks to many factors; the most important of which is the determination of the graffiti artists themselves.

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Elizabeth Rauh is a PhD candidate of Islamic art history in the Department of the History of Art at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She specializes in modern art and visual culture of the Middle East, along with artistic practices in the history of the Islamic world. Her research project examines the modern dynamics of Islamic artistic heritage in the Arab world and Iran.
Mike Derderian is an artist, illustrator, and writer based in Amman. He graduated with a BA in English Literature from The University of Damascus in 2003 and since then has worked as a journalist on arts, politics, and culture for the Star Weekly and other publications in Jordan and abroad. In 2008 he launched his comic strip, The Dark Side of the Spoon, with U Men magazine.

He works in the streets of Amman under the pen name Sardine. Two years ago he founded F.A.D.A. 317, a space for comics, illustration and graffiti.