Beginning a series of talks on artists in the exhibition “Rituals of Signs and Transitions (1975-1995)”, Algerian-Palestinian academic Adila Laïdi-Hanieh discusses the artistic journey of Turkish/Jordanian Fahrelnissa Zeid (1901-1991) in three cities: Istanbul, Paris, and Amman. Fahrelnissa Zeid’s artistic journey began in Istanbul where she was one of the first women to enroll in the Academy of Fine Arts. Her journey took her to Paris where she studied at the Académie Ranson under artist Roger Bissière and painted in the 50s and 60s “lyrical abstraction" artworks as coined by critic Charles Estienne, founder of the "New School of Paris". She came to Amman in 1975 where she established The Fahrelnissa Zeid Institute of Fine Arts “to pass on to younger generations" her 40 years of experience in the art. Her “late style” there until her passing in 1991 was characterized by a bifurcation between her teaching and her own practice’s new focus on portraiture, achieving "authorship and uniqueness.”