The Utopian Airport Lounge: An Exhibition of Public Art Projects

December 5, 2010 - 18:30 to December 26, 2010 - 19:00

Artists: Saba Innab, Basim Magdy, Ben Washington, Luis Berrios Negron, Dina Haddadin, Regina Mamou, and Rami Daher

Curated By: Juliana Irene Smith

"There is a non-place in every place, and in all non-places can be recomposed. To put in another way, places and non-places, while they correspond to the physical spaces, they are also a reflection of attitudes, positions, the relations individuals have with the spaces they live in or move through."

–Marc Auge

Doesn’t everyone dream about an ideal world? Does anyone actually enjoy transition? The Utopian Airport Lounge is a public art exhibition inspired by Le Corbusier’s visual and abstract approach towards utopia in combination with Marc Auge’s hypothesis on non-place. This project compared the city of Amman to an airport waiting area, a place that could be seen, at the same time, a non place.

The artists, with varying relations to the city, were invited based on their use of structure, urbanism, public space, and installation methodologies. Engaging the audience in the work, the hope was to have a conversation involving the questions, “why is utopia important? Does it give one the space (or even place) to dream up the ideal situation and is this individual, ego driven or as a collective, city and society inhabitants?” Makan hosted an exhibit of the process, dialogue and questions that the theory and works invoke.

Press Links:

Al-Rai:

http://www.alrai.com/pages.php?news_id=372645

Jordan Times:

http://www.jordantimes.com/index.php?news=32496

http://www.jordantimes.com/?page=49

Al-Akhbar:

http://akhbarbeirut.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/all_15-12-10.pdf

Goethe Institute:

http://www.goethe.de/ins/jo/amm/ver/ar6810055v.htm

art citizens:

http://www.artcitizens.net/event/list/id/1788