Innovations, crafts galore as Amman Design Week kicks off

AMMAN — Amman Design Week kicks off on Friday, unleashing a year of preparations by artists, architects and designers.

The exhibition is opened with a landscape of “waterless gardens”, a display structured by Bahraini and Lebanese artists who based it on their imagination of what the Levant’s gardens would look like using the most found soils of the region.

The event is held at the Ras Al Ain Hangar and has 206 exhibitioners, with locations in Jabal Amman and Jabal Luweibdeh as well.

From the Amman Design Institute, Fatima Katanani, a pharmacist who designs as a hobby, told The Jordan Times that she and others have been mentored by “the best in the business, people who have worked for big names such as Victoria Beckham”.

Local design groups such as Dezain, which has 120 “innovative” Jordanian designers, display their work in the clothes, jewellery and stationary sector. 

Some groups like The Good Socks set aside a percentage of their sales to donate meals to underprivileged families.

The week is centred around four emerging themes: Material research, territorial explorations, narratives of the city and weaving. 

From loose gravel to jameed, the artists explore new materials and designs to fit this year’s theme, “possibilities”.

In the student exhibition, Jude Abu Ghuneim, a GJU graduate, narrates the story of Baqoura and Ghumar. From using pictures extracted from old archives to visiting the sites herself, Abu Ghuneim tells the history of the two areas.

“I just found it very interesting and very relative to the current political climate. Under the theme of ‘possibilities’, I would like people to imagine what the future of these two areas will look like, not just the past,” she said. 

The event  anticipated over 100,000 attendees, with 206 exhibitioners, 50 speakers, 19 music and art performances and 149 “unique” events scheduled to take place.

The Jordan Script Routes, an “exploratory and playful” series of installations that feature the history of Jordan in relation to its neighbours, will showcase work to promote an “inclusive” Jordan through the various writing systems and alphabets that have passed through or were invented in the Kingdom.

Paying tribute to the environment, Future Food/Future City is an open-air demonstration of an imagined future for the city’s public spaces, and a reexamined illustration of how various city spots can be turned into green spaces.