Zoe Paterniani

JORDAN GENERAL ELECTIONS 2016

Jordan is an independent constitutional monarchy since 1946: every four years, citizens are asked to vote their parliamentary committee using a tribal system, in the last 2016 elections the turnout was of 37%.

As I landed in Ammam on September 1st, 2016, the parliamentary elections were about to take place. On the way from Queen Alia airport, I saw hundreds of electoral campaign posters. Amman is a collection of cities, there are no avenues nor ordered squares separating each part of town. Areas that are completely different in terms of culture and architecture cross over each other, mixing and blurring any idea of limit or actual border. As I was trying to orientate myself, those oversize candidates’ faces colonizing the city became like a fil rouge, the only element connecting areas that were geographically and culturally far apart, and yet they were seemingly ignored by most Jordan citizens.

This installation is most obvious mean to convey what I believe to be a temporary map of the city, made of transitory and impermanent cardinal points. It takes into account later thoughts on ways of representing power: the institutional and historical image of ghastly rooms of the old parliament house is compared with the images of the electoral campaign, destined to be chosen and rearranged according to opinions and needs, and consumed slowly until they disappear, as a result of a process of reappropriation. The project has received the patronage of Unesco Giovani.

Project presented in Giovane Fotografia Italiana #06 | ACTIVISM

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