The streets of Amman keep me spellbound. A very large part in the design of urban space in Amman has Baladk Street Art Festival, which started 2013 as a street art project initiated by a group of friends and volunteers of Al Balad Theater. A collective of local emerging artists and musicians residing in the area successfully implemented the first project which became an annual festival that brings together artists, art groups, and community organizations. In the course of the years not only the neighbourhood Al Hashmi Al Shamal has changed its face a lot. Once a military compound, there is now cheap housing for mostly Palestinian refugees.

Of course, the local authorities have a weighty voice in the organisation of the festival. Amman and its constitutional monarchy give strict conditions for organisers and artists, regarding the choice of motifs for the artworks. The guardians of morals keep a strict watch; respect for the monarchy, no politics, no religon and no sex. Painting his mural “ Lady in Grey“ for Baladk 2018, Suhaib Attar, local artist with Palestine roots, came into trouble with the conservative-religious government, simply by the fact that his motive was a woman. To provoke and tease them, he painted her completely undressed. He finalized the artwork dressing her and made her the Bedouin woman he had planned. [1]

„Lady in Grey“ Suhaib Attar, Amman, Baladk 2018

The pictures in this posts are shown by courtesy of a friend currently living in Amman