καιρός remembered

Remember

REMEMBER: written in capital letters on a wall on a hill in Amman, Jordan. I saw it from the hill opposite whilst visiting two modern art galleries located there.

REMEMBER: is it an artistic statement; is it connected to the artworks in the gallery spaces and buildings? That could well be the case. As a standalone word in the context of a city in the Middle East, it is rich in possible, ambiguous meanings, which fits in well with conceptual art.

REMEMBER: the ideals and expectations of the Arab Spring; the state of unrest into which much of the Islamic world has been plunged; the extreme violence; the terror; the suicide bombings; the hundreds of thousands of refugees; …..

REMEMBER: that word kept going round and round in my head as I looked at the old photographic negatives of portraits of women that the Iraqi artist Halim Al-Karim had hung in the tree outside one of the art galleries.

REMEMBER: here too, in this war-torn part of the world, interesting and thought-provoking art can be created by perceptive individuals and shown to a receptive audience.

REMEMBER: don’t forget it!

Photo of the week: Hillside opposite Dar Al-Anda Gallery and Darat al Funun Gallery, Amman, Jordan 2010