DARAT AL FUNUN SUMMER ACADEMY 2024
Dates: 23 June – 31 July 2024
Application Deadline: 31 May 2024 at 23:59 Amman Time
Introduction
Intensified rifts induced by settler and global colonial forces disrupt and separate our landscapes, societies, and ecologies. These rifts fundamentally alter our realities, posing threats to lives, demographics, societal structures, and cultural systems. This necessitates confronting unprecedented transformations and fostering resilience.
Program Overview
The summer academy invites emerging practitioners to critically engage with their practices and the broader role of arts and cultural institutions in response to these rifts and transformations. Participants will reassess cultural systems, habits, and knowledge practices, considering methods to forge resilience amidst changing landscapes.
Through facilitator-led workshops and collective sessions, participants will explore these themes from diverse perspectives. The program emphasizes process over product, offering a space for deep experimentation and introspection. It is ideal for contemporary artists, researchers, art students, architects, and anyone interested in the broader cultural and political implications.
Primary Language: Arabic (some readings in English)
Streams and Facilitators
Stream I: Materiality and Immateriality
Facilitators: Nadi Abusaada and Wesam Al Asali
This session blends theory and practice, experimenting with building practices to examine how materials relate to societal challenges and transformations. It transcends traditional dualities, focusing on the situational particularities of materials and their roles in contemporary conditions.
Stream II: Reflections on Grassroots Thinking
Facilitator: Omar Hmidat
This workshop critically examines grassroots thinking and work, exploring how it relates to communal, cultural, artistic, and economic practices. Participants will collectively explore grassroots thinking as a tool for understanding and interpreting contexts and transformations in societal life.
Stream III: “It Takes a Village”
Facilitator: Noor Abed
This workshop explores the use of peripheral knowledge to develop alternative social and representational models in Palestine. It delves into folktales, songs, and rumours as collective knowledge sources rooted in resistance, connecting them to present moments and shaping new imaginaries of daily resistance.
Eligibility
Open to applicants from Jordan and Palestine. Up to 10 participants will be selected. Participants from outside Amman must cover their own travel costs to Amman. Per diem and shared accommodation will be provided.
Attendance
The program runs from 23 June to 31 July 2024. Participants must commit to all sessions and activities, generally held on Sundays, Thursdays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The final schedule will be shared with accepted students.
