The art of queering the ordinary canceled concerts, broken eggs, and artistic attunement to ethical life in Amman, Jordan

Abstract Through conversations with artists and fieldwork on both intimately motivated and politically eventful dimensions of the art scene in Amman, Jordan, this article asks how we might understand the role of artistic work in thinking about ethics as a matter of making space to be in, when faced with moral limitations. From the minor story of a broken egg and to the experience of the world being broken by violence, I explore the potential for artistic attunement to make moments of space for ethical life in times of uncertainty, as well as to call attention to the experiential limits of the moral “ordinary.” I propose an experientially grounded attunement to the art of queering the ordinary through a synergetic reading of anthropological work on ethics and morality and by making visible spaces between artist, artwork, anthropologist, and world.