Survivor's Guilt

Towards the start of my contract, I interviewed local artists for a magazine article about an outdoor exhibition in Amman. I wrote this of the project: "Public art as a social intervention or public art intervention attempts to intervene with “real life”, redefine and challenge the existing notions of public space and augment the status of the status quo. For many artists, the new medium has provided an outlet in what they consider the confining and regulating world of gallery and museum art."

The project was interesting, however interviewing the artists who are attempting to confront and examine socio-economic issues in the kingdom was eye-opening. One artist in particular intrigued me by her honesty about the Palestinian Occupation, it's effects in Amman and her future work influenced by her concerns and observations. She mentioned that most artists are inspired by a question or an idea that becomes a theme in their pieces or a driving force for their work. For her it was about a person's longing to live somewhere else. Unfortunately, she refused to let most of our interview regarding Palestine be printed. I'm posting part of what was omitted from the magazine because I am curious about other's thoughts on the issue and I would like to explore the idea for a thesis paper. As well, since the artist is a native, I feel it provides a more legitimate and thought-provoking perspective about Amman than I could.

"Influenced by her Grandmother’s obsession with Palestine, an obsession she considers present in many Ammanians that is responsible for the transient mood of the city, she plans to conduct a series of interviews with people who lived in Palestine for twenty years and were forced to migrate to Amman. She will ask them to describe their homeland. As well, she plans to record people talking to a psychoanalyst about Palestine. In both instances she hopes to capture a citizen’s obsession with Palestine, which serves as an example of humanities inability to let go. “People here have a guilty feeling,” says the artist. “They have a sick relationship with this place.”