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Call for applications to participate in the 15-weeks experiential learning program and arts residency in Amman, Jordan. Deadline: 18 February 2016
Feb 2016Spring Sessions is an experiential learning program and arts residency based in Amman. The program seeks to bring emerging and more-established cultural practitioners together to create and share their work and outlooks. Our purpose is to expand fields of knowledge, foster creative working skills, and encourage participants to question existing paradigms by experimenting outside of traditional modes. The 15-week program consists of a series of workshops and other activities encouraging participants to research and realize, collaboratively or individually, ideas related to the sessions.
While previous editions of Spring Sessions revolved around downtown Amman, this year’s program will take place at and between two sites of more recent and suburban character. This year marks the beginning of our permanent base in the former home of Makan in Jabal Weibdeh as well as the program’s temporary occupancy of the city’s purpose-built “Culture Street” in Shmeisani. The program’s workshops, residency component, and other activities will be set in and informed by the histories, realities, and possibilities of these two spaces and their contexts—allowing their various intricacies to inform participants’ imaginations and practice.
The workshops, conducted by invited artists and practitioners from various fields, will address the ways in which different spaces assume cultural significance and the dynamics by which such assumptions are maintained. What is a public space and who is its “public”? How does it influence our creative works and agencies? What is a purpose-built public space like Culture Street supposed to achieve? Does naming a street “Culture” change its culture? Should we distinguish between the notions of culture in public space and the culture of public space? The program will focus on these and related questions, seeking answers in both the abstract and in light of the social and political dynamics of contemporary Amman. Situating our discussions in various places will, we hope, enable us to experience the different dynamics of the very cultural and public spaces we are questioning.
The workshops will be complemented by sustained mentoring sessions with established practitioners, a program-long writing workshop seeking to develop participants’ expressive skills, reading sessions and research excursions, and various spontaneous activities as suggested by the group.
Schedule & Content
Spring Sessions 2016 will take place over 15 weeks from 1 March-18 June. Participants will meet 3 to 4 times per week, with a one-week break every month. Weekday sessions will be held in the evenings and weekend sessions will be held all day. Participants are expected to participate in all sessions.
The program consists of a combination of workshops, talks and seminars, mentoring sessions, research excursions, and other activities as suggested by the group. Participants will develop and present a personal project over the course of the program.
Confirmed workshops will be conducted by:
- Fouad Elkhoury (Lebanon);
- Culinary Politique (Germany);
- Hong-Kai Wang (Taiwan);
- Michael Rakowitz (U.S.A).
As well as:
- Writing workshop with Yaser Amad (Jordan);
T- heory seminars with Yvonne Buchheim (Germany);
- Mentoring sessions with Raed Ibrahim (Jordan).
More information on these and further workshops will be released shortly. Details and schedules will be shared with accepted participants. Please note that workshops will be conducted in both Arabic and English
Deadline for applications: 18 February 2016
More information & Application Process:
thespringsessions.com
thespringsessions(at)gmail.com
Spring Sessions
Open Call for Participation
Dates:
1 March – 18 June 2016 (15 weeks)
Location:
Residency space in Jabal Weibdeh and temporary base in Shmeisani.
Deadline for applications: 18 February 2016