The 2019 Hangar Exhibition is as much about creation and authorship as it is about revealing connections and commonalities amongst designers, in an effort to draw a map of shared interests and potential synergies across the Arab World. The resulting itinerary develops around four emerging themes: material research, territorial explorations, narratives of the city, and weaving.
From loose gravel to jameed, materials are reconsidered away from the standard modus operandi – their application and uses rethought and molded into architecture, furniture or edible sculptures.
Landscapes are not only considered as a romantic backdrop for tourism and leisure but as a source of resources and new ways of living; territory becoming home and soil creating columns.
A growing interest in mapping, drawing, and chronicling cities in the Middle East could bely the difficulty in dealing with their exponential and often chaotic growth. It is an acknowledgement that the city is increasingly being understood, not only as an accumulation of data, but also as a juxtaposition of stories and narratives: some personal, others shared.
Millennial crafts such as weaving are being revitalized, and goat hair, wool and palm fronds are spinning different interpretations of shelter against the backdrop of increasingly hostile environments.
The four emerging themes share an interest in investigating different material, aesthetic, and conceptual possibilities. This may appear futile in the current context of our time and place, shifting the focus of design away from the many urgent social and economic challenges – or maybe it is specifically in these moments that it is the most necessary.
“Possibilities” is a call to broaden the reading of the everyday, the vernacular, the abandoned, and the problematic away from a solely performative and problem-based perspective. It is an opportunity to talk about design not just as a tool for communicating and reflecting on the world, but also as a tool for creating new worlds altogether; an invitation to rediscover the crafts, landscapes, and resources of Jordan and beyond as a toolbox for creation.