Two years after taking the middle east by storm with his Jameed chocolate creation, food artist Omar Sartawi comes back with another otherworldly culinary invention: an edible replica of the AYN Ghazal statue.
The Ain Ghazal Statues are a number of monumental lime plaster and reed statues dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic C period ,between the mid-7th millennium BC and the mid-8th millennium BC.
the statues are among the earliest large-scale representations of the human form, and are regarded to be one of the most remarkable specimens of prehistoric art from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B or C period
An audacious take on the JORDAN’s iconic historic discovery by OMAR trying to replicate the statue with a new edible building material using Jordan's most unique and ancient ingredient originating in that Bedouin part of the dessert… Jameed,
Jameed is a salty dried yoghurt born from a century-old traditional method of preserving ewe or goat’s milk. The milk is turned into yoghurt through shaping, salting and sun-drying before being moulded into the stone hard balls known to Jordanians as the ‘Jameed’ used to cook their national lamb-based dish called MANSAF.
Sartawi a chef with speciality in molecular gastronomy and food science with a background in design made Ain Ghazal statue with a unique building material that he developed with a, over the period of six months having JAMEED as one of the main ingredients, a material that he called jammed concrete cause it resembles concrete in its form and it hardens with time.
To color it and give it the soul of the ancient statue he used dates to give it the earthy brown color and texture rather than using artificial artificial dye.
The art piece was first unveiled at the Amman Design Week 3 rd edition to the shock and disbelieve of many that were able to eat a bites next to the replica made out of the same material.
Food meets art using methodical madness
He himself admits loving to play with people’s preconceptions, blurring the lines between disciplines and human senses. ‘‘Just like for Jameed chocolate, when JAMEED and making it exotic to a jordanian with flavours more familiar to a French or a Belgian person and exotic to a Jordanian , this concrete statue was a way to play with different techniques and arts to create a new perception where u no longer sees jammed as food only.’’
Unsurprisingly, Sartawi’s next projects take on even more unexpected fields, with an upcoming collaboration with Flashions Week new edible wearable material and an astrophysics inspired ‘Bite of The Universe’ project, which will combine some of NASA’s most astonishing findings in recent years.
Currently exhibited at the Corner Art Space in Amman, Sartawi’s unorthodox replica certainly does not have much to envy to its original two-headed model, exposed at the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
for more of my work please check https://www.instagram.com/omar_sartawi/
More info: Instagram
New Building Material JAMEED CONCRETE
Ayn Ghazal replica at AMMAN DESIGN WEEK 2019
ORIGINAL at Louvre Abu Dhabi
