Amro Yaghi

My practice-led research, asks how forms of performative interventions can help to understand inclusion, exclusion and the conditions for reclaiming public space in Amman.

Inequality is an issue for all cities around the world, but the degree of inequality varies from one city to the next and is strongly related to the political agenda. Like most other major cities in the region, which have taken Dubai as a role model,
Amman has experienced a variety of projects as a result of surplus capital from the gulf which dramatically transformed the traditional public spaces. Amman became a socially divided city. My research explores possible solutions to inequality and social exclusion in an attempt to halt the kind of civil unrest and political disempowerment that it might otherwise lead to.

My research reflects on residents' narratives, collected in selected open spaces. The study proposes a framework for the re-claiming and re-production of public space through performative practice, as an attempt to reflect on social exclusion and inequality in public spaces in Amman.

My approach is based on different disciplines including social, spatial and political theories, which I translate into a performative spatial practice. These interventions were based on feminist theories to both disrupt power structures and reveal power inequalities.