How did this grant contribute to the realization of your project in regard to artistic exchange, local cultural development and/or the promotion of cultural diversity?
In September 2017, I got invited by Global Shaper Community / Cebu Hub to take part in 2017's Shape Asia Pacific in their city Cebu. The purpose of the invitation is to share my experience, particularly the rehabilitation and renovation of heritage houses and spaces for tourism in collaboration with local municipalities in Jordan. Arranging my trip to Cebu was hard from the beginning because of the flight tickets that I have to cover by myself and I wasn't ready for that. My need to contribute to this event and do my first workshop in term of built heritage was the main reason why I contacted RCF and asked them to support me getting to Cebu. I really appreciate Ms.Cotte help and supporting to make this dream true, and getting the email that I got accepted to the travel grant has made my year. During the event, I got the opportunity to give a workshop for around 50 shapers from 23 different countries about Built Heritage and my work with MedeArts.
How does exchange, networking and international contacts contribute to the development of your artistic and cultural project?
Having this opportunity to share my work experience with MedeArts has helped us a lot to expose our work and have many ideas and connection that will help us in the next days. The presentation I did about MedeArts was pretty impressive, and I got many good comments from the attendee and a special recognition from Cebu hub to travel all the way from Jordan to Philippine to give this workshop. My main outcome of this event was a spark with another 2 shapers from Venice, Italy who are really interested in implementing MedeArts spaces project in their city. we're now in the phase of discussion and hopefully, we can go far to start having this project on the ground someday soon.
Can you elaborate on the learning and knowledge you have gained and shared throughout this experience?
Traveling for the first time to Asia and to meet more than 130 world leaders who came from more than 25 countries was something super precious for me. The 3 days event was full of activities, workshops, trips and sharing experiences. Since the main theme of the conference is about tangible and intangible heritage, in the first day we got the chance to go around Cebu and meet real examples for local artists and activists who were able to start projects to preserve the cultural heritage in their cities and for their countries/ This trip around Cebu has helped me a lot in learning new methods on how we can start looking at Irbid and Jordan from different perspective and how the heritage preservation we focus on can be implemented in many ways which that include the intangible heritage. Going through the workshop after that and to hear from the shapers about the project they work on inside their communities was very special since it was mainly a kind of mind-mind workshop and you can directly relate to your project and organization. During my workshop, I started it with a brief about the work we do in MedeArts and examples of the successful projects we have, then I gave them some tips on how we can start cultural projects and what we should put in consideration while implementing it. The group was divided into different teams, some of them work on staring a plan for a future a project that can be implemented and related to culture and art. The other group was working on giving tips and advice on how we sustain MedeArts and its projects.
Please indicate a link to your current work (website/facebook page)
https://www.facebook.com/MedeArts/ https://www.facebook.com/MedeArts/
