Visitors experience bedouins’ daily life at weaving exhibition

AMMAN — Audience get the chance to witness the traditional weaving techniques performed by different bedouin tribes at the “Woven — The art of traditional weavings in Jordan” exhibition inaugurated by the Jordan Craft Centre (JCC) Al Aydi on Saturday, in cooperation with Tiraz: Widad Kawar Home of the Arab Dress.

The exhibition will run through October 14, showcasing the history of the weaving tradition through century-old rugs and different tools used for their making. 

The JCC exteriors are now covered with Jordan’s unique patterns, created by women who carried them by memory and handed them down from mother to daughter. 

The history and heritage of each of the regions in Jordan is echoed in the different materials, patterns, colours and types of fringes distinctive of each area. 

Colours are often soft and mellow around Karak, while rugs from Al Jafr showcase bright and clear tones. The names of the patterns also change from tribe to tribe, and what is “hujub” (amulets) in one area is “rkamat” (waves) in another, while “stairs” to one tribe can be the “road to Jericho” for another. 

JCC Director Ahmad Hussein told The Jordan Times that the exhibition aims to “revive a craft that has long been an integral part of Jordanian life, gifting the audience with a tradition that is still representative of nowadays bedouin life”.

Visitors can get a taste of this way of life by sitting in a real “beit asha’ar” (bedouin tent), experiencing how it feels to be under the roof of one of the biggest woven structures that ever existed. 

The different pieces presented in the exhibition are a testimony of the work of bedouin women who spun their yarns, constructed their looms, and wove the long strips for the tent in which they lived. 

Visitors can also experience the sight of a weaver crafting new rugs in a loom in front of the tent, getting the picture of the day-to-day bedouin life.