One of my goals this season was to hold a photo show, highlighting photos from work on the tall and in the community to show some of the people of Dhiban what we were doing. We rarely get visits from local folks so we thought it’d behoove us to bring some of the tall to them. I intended to do something similar last year, but ran out of time. It was a priority for the 2010 season.
After a couple of meetings with the mayor, he allowed us to use the Dhiban town hall, a building in the middle of the town that is used for community functions. We had the photos developed in Madaba, and bought frames there as well. Hanging them was rough as the town hall, like almost every other building in Dhiban, was made out of cinder blocks. But after much preparation (including runs to buy sweets and tea) we held the show last Thursday.
Along with the photos on the wall we ran a slide show with a lot more of the images taken from the season. This seemed to be the most popular part of the show, and people sat and watched until photos of themselves or of people they knew appeared on the screen, then cheered.
A lot of town dignitaries showed up, but not as many of the regular townsfolk. It was disappointing in that respect, but a good first step. I’ll have a lot more details in my dissertation, if you care to know!
Colleen Morgan 
This is just so, so awesome. Wish I could have seen it!
super cool colleen. you are always giving me more ideas and things to think about…when i actually get to START my fieldwork!!!
i have been thinking a lot about how i can put photography to use in some of my work, and what would be an effective way to do it (beyond the usual photography-as-ethnographic-illustration-in-the-margins thing). anyway, this gives me some more ideas.
hope all is well,
r
Wow! Wish I could have seen it. Seems like everyone had a great time.
This is a wonderful idea! I’m glad to hear it was a success. Any chance you could get this exhibit installed, even briefly, in the Jordan Archaeology Museum in Amman?