Street Art in East Amman, June 2022

 

On Saturday, June 25, 2022, we visited Hashimi Ashamali, a neighborhood in East Amman and home to thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. It is a poor and marginalized community. People have low educational levels and very few opportunities to escape poverty and suffering. Introduced to hiphop in his teenage years, Aladdin, tour guide and son of this community, spoke about how he and his friends would come home from school and crowd around a TV to watch hiphop competitions broadcast from around the world. Hiphop widened the horizon of what was possible. He took our group around the neighborhood, stopping at the most arresting or storied murals done by local and international street artists. Many of these murals were done during Baladk, a highly successful festival that draws street artists from around the world, who create murals based on annual themes. The murals attract growing numbers of tourists, changing the neighborhood. Any financial benefit for the residents comes from food and drink sales by the tourists during their tours.

“This is Love,” by a German artist to his wife.

”War, Pollution, and Toxicity.”

The next three murals say, in order, “Art is the Environment.”

Completed seven years ago, “Self Reflection” (below) is the very first mural in the neighborhood. The building’s owner and the residents of this religiously conservative neighborhood initially frowned upon the mural’s subject, since many Moslems eschew human representations. The likeness of the girl, a seven-year-old Syrian refugee from Za’atari Camp in Jordan, had been chosen by an international street artist who had led, along with Hashimi Ashamali's Suhaib Attar, an arts program for Syrian refugee children. This girl, who remains nameless, had been the most self-applying and diligent student in the group. Always dressed in the same hoodie, she dreamt of going to Disney Land. Incredibly, to this day, she has never seen this homage: due to her status as a Syrian refugee, her movement is strictly restricted to Za’atari Camp.

Below: Street artist Suhaib Attar asked the neighborhood’s children to describe how they felt during the COVID outbreak and lockdown. As they described their mental state of confinement and fear, he sketched the prototype before finally painting this mural.

Rima, Maya, and Dima stand before an entry in the Baladk Festival

“Kidnapped Angel.” Created by Suhaib Attar in March 2022 upon the request of his father. Notice the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Left to right: Maya, Dima, Rima, Ed, and Kidnapped Angel.

Ed and Aladdin our guide before “Women Creators”

Rima and Maya stay cool.

Widely popular in the musical procession (zaffah) at weddings, the Scottish bag pipes are a hold-out from the British Mandate. Thomas Powell, the mural’s creator, was lucky enough to be invited to a wedding while in Amman.

“Woman in Traditional Dress.”

Conjugated for feminine singular, “You Are Strong”

UNICEF’s World Children’s Day

The Neighborhood

Self-portrait. Suhaib Attar

”Girl,” by Attar

Children dominate many of the murals’ focus. Here: ”Flock of Birds”

“For the people by the people” is how our guide Aladdin described street art. Many murals are intentionally left anonymous. Residents have expressed their critiques —positive and not— with scrawls, paint, defacement, etc. Photo 1: “House.” A neighborhood child added the line to the wall, which the French and original artist declined to finish. Photo 2: “Fly Away” by the same artist.

Most artists participating in Baladk are men. Notable exceptions include Syrian Dina Saadi, who painted this mural below. The parked bus obstructing our view and photography was a reminder of the living and unpretentious character of Hashimi Ashamali’s “gallery exhibit.”