Ahmed Elkhalidi
Swapped at Birth
18 April to 17 May 2018
Opening 18 April at 6pm
As part of the 7th Image Festival Amman, Jacaranda Images is hosting an exhibition by one of Jordan’s, and now Australia’s, dynamic young artists Ahmed El Khalidi.
The Image Festival’s theme in 2018 is “HOME” and Ahmed’s exhibition is titled ‘Swapped At Birth’ documenting, through photography and graphics, the differences and similarities of the artist’s original home Jordan and his new home Australia.
“With this project ‘Swapped at Birth’ I have layered images, textures and abstract symbols to create collages to record my personal story memories of what ‘home’ means to me now. This work shows that home for me can be a physical or a psychological place that changes due to our circumstances, as a place of belonging, but also can also be a place of displacement and confusion. Our memories, such as our early childhood ones from Kuwait and Jordan, may be filled with gaps, unreliable and they can fade or get lost. I draw on these remnants for my work along with the new images that are embedded from Australia. I like to play with photos and language to explore the importance of those memories through words, sentences and visual short stories.” Ahmed Elkhaldi
This exhibition is made possible with the support of the Australian Embassy in Amman
Ahmed Elkhaldi
Ahmed El Khalidi is a photographer, graphic designer, illustrator and artist with over 20 years experience in graphic and digital media. He has worked on a number of projects ranging from online media, motion graphics, publications and illustrations in Sydney, Adelaide, Amman, London, Doha, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
Ahmed has participated in International Biennial of Contemporary Art 2007 in Spain, Squiggle Art Gallery in Sydney, the International Salon of Contemporary Artists, Oeiras, Portugal in 2002, the Jordanian Art exhibition, at the National Art gallery, in March 2003 and the Graphic Art exhibitions held at the Darat al-Funun in 1995. Ahmed lives in South Australia
