artist
Samia Zaru

Palestine 1938. Lives and works in Jordan.

Samia Taktak Zaru is a multimedia artist, designer, painter and sculptor. In the 1980s, she was the first artist in Jordan to create installations for public spaces, and her murals and urban art can be found in various locations across the city of Amman. She exhibited her work at Darat al Funun for the first time in 1994.

"The beauty of nature attracts me, and tragedy touches me, The injustice of man to man upsets me, all this I can absorb and store in my memory. In moments, emotions explode, and memories come back.

(..)

The idea of an art installation stems from the idea of memory. In my opinion, it is an understanding that does not end, but extends without limits or a frame. In fact it erases all social and religious boundaries and is comprised of all things. It is not painting or material composition or color or etching or sculpture. Art installations are everything else; it is the accumulation of things and people and colors and lines and textures and atmospheres and dimensions; it is the viewers journey through and around and behind everything; it is the three dimensions plus its own special dimension born out of the event. That imaginary line that extends between the artistic atmosphere and the scene, inviting viewers to embark on a route between the imagination and the familiar, as the viewer is not a stranger to this environment because he/she is able to choose where and how to interact with whatever he chooses. This, in my opinion, is the fourth dimension – interaction, and continuous wonder and engagement between one human production and another. The beat of human life proves its existence in every corner and in every moment."

- Excerpt from Samia Zaru's testimony (translated from the Arabic)
Jordanian Artists: Testimonials and Studies, Published by Darat al Funun - The Khalid Shoman Foundation, 2002.

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