Challenging Eurocentric art history, the circulation of early pictures of Makkah and the pre-Islamic Christian heritage of the UAE are among the research projects selected as part of Louvre Abu Dhabi’s inaugural Fellowships and Grants programme.
The initiative is designed to support new inquiry in the fields of art history, museum studies, heritage science, conservation and archaeology. Five scholars were selected from a pool of 170 submissions from around the world.
The programme offers both short and long-term fellowships to scholars. Short-term fellows receive an award of Dh85,000 for a three-month residency, while long-term fellows are granted Dh245,000 to support a nine-month research project.
The first cohort of fellow scholars will have unprecedented access to Louvre Abu Dhabi’s facilities, including its research centre, conservation centre as well as a state-of-the-art scientific library that is touted to be “the first of its kind in the Gulf region”.
The fellows will work closely with the museum’s collection to research what expands our understanding of art history and culture, embracing a polyphony of cultural perspectives, especially those from the Global South.
Here are the inaugural programme’s five fellows as well as their projects.
Hamid Keshmirshekan
Hamid Keshmirshekan is a senior scholar at Columbia University and a former teaching fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) in London. The British scholar has been selected as one of the short-term fellows of the programme.
His project, De-centring the Canon: Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Challenge to Eurocentric Art History, investigates how Louvre Abu Dhabi incorporates modern and contemporary Middle Eastern artists into its universal narrative. Through this lens, he examines curatorial approaches that question Eurocentric frameworks and creates room for alternative art histories.
Helena Barranha
Helena Barranha is a Portuguese professor at the Instituto Superior Tecnico in the University of Lisbon and a researcher at the Institute of Art History of the NOVA University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Social and Human Sciences.
Also selected as a short-term fellow, Barranha brings a project titled The Multiple Images of a Cosmopolitan Museum: Mapping the Visual Representations and Architectural Reinterpretations of Louvre Abu Dhabi.
The project examines how the museum’s architecture reflects cultural convergence and is reinterpreted by the public, particularly through social media. She also investigates how digital tools, including AI, are transforming the perception of museum spaces.
Mizuho Ikeda
A research associate at the Centre of Southeast Asian Studies and a teaching fellow at Soas, Mizuho Ikeda is the programme’s only long-term fellow.
Her project, Universal Museums and Religious Diversity: A Comparative Analysis of Exhibition Practices at Louvre Abu Dhabi and Museums in Asia, explores how Hindu and Buddhist artworks are presented at Louvre Abu Dhabi. The British-Japanese scholar examines curatorial strategies and visitor engagement in the display of sacred art within a global, multi-faith context.
Rhomaillessa Talhaoui
A graduate of Universite Paris Cite, Rhomaillessa Talhaoui is a French-Moroccan scholar whose work focuses on the circulation and reinterpretation of early photographs of Makkah between 1880 and 1920.
In The Transimperial Circulation of Early Pictures of Makkah (1880–1920), she traces how these images moved through colonial, religious and commercial networks. It highlights the contributions of local photographers and challenges western-centric interpretations of early photography in the region.
Suhaila Almansoori
Suhaila Almansoori is an Emirati historian and cultural heritage professional, currently pursuing a master’s degree in archaeology and cultural heritage at Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi.
Her project, Pre-Islamic Christian Heritage in the United Arab Emirates: An Evaluation of the Siniya Island Archaeological Site, builds on her archaeological fieldwork at Al Sulaimi in the Al Ain region and the Christian monastery from the sixth or seventh century uncovered at Siniya Island in Umm Al Quwain. Her current research focuses on a rare palm frond basket coated with bitumen, which was discovered earlier this year.
If you go
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct to Nairobi, with fares starting from Dh1,695. The resort can be reached from Nairobi via a 35-minute flight from Wilson Airport or Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, or by road, which takes at least three hours.
The rooms
Rooms at Fairmont Mount Kenya range from Dh1,870 per night for a deluxe room to Dh11,000 per night for the William Holden Cottage.
The specs
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Transmission: seven-speed auto
Power: 420 bhp
Torque: 624Nm
Price: from Dh293,200
On sale: now
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Profile of Bitex UAE
Date of launch: November 2018
Founder: Monark Modi
Based: Business Bay, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: Eight employees
Investors: Self-funded to date with $1m of personal savings
About Housecall
Date started: July 2020
Founders: Omar and Humaid Alzaabi
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech
# of staff: 10
Funding to date: Self-funded
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
Mubadala World Tennis Championship 2018 schedule
Thursday December 27
Men's quarter-finals
Kevin Anderson v Hyeon Chung 4pm
Dominic Thiem v Karen Khachanov 6pm
Women's exhibition
Serena Williams v Venus Williams 8pm
Friday December 28
5th place play-off 3pm
Men's semi-finals
Rafael Nadal v Anderson/Chung 5pm
Novak Djokovic v Thiem/Khachanov 7pm
Saturday December 29
3rd place play-off 5pm
Men's final 7pm
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
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THE BIO
Bio Box
Role Model: Sheikh Zayed, God bless his soul
Favorite book: Zayed Biography of the leader
Favorite quote: To be or not to be, that is the question, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Favorite food: seafood
Favorite place to travel: Lebanon
Favorite movie: Braveheart
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Company%20profile
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Defence review at a glance
• Increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 but given “turbulent times it may be necessary to go faster”
• Prioritise a shift towards working with AI and autonomous systems
• Invest in the resilience of military space systems.
• Number of active reserves should be increased by 20%
• More F-35 fighter jets required in the next decade
• New “hybrid Navy” with AUKUS submarines and autonomous vessels
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The 12 breakaway clubs
England
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur
Italy
AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus
Spain
Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
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The specs: 2018 Nissan Altima
Price, base / as tested: Dh78,000 / Dh97,650
Engine: 2.5-litre in-line four-cylinder
Power: 182hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 244Nm @ 4,000rpm
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Fuel consumption, combined: 7.6L / 100km
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Zakat definitions
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
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UAE players with central contracts
Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Rameez Shahzad, Shaiman Anwar, Adnan Mufti, Mohammed Usman, Ghulam Shabbir, Ahmed Raza, Qadeer Ahmed, Amir Hayat, Mohammed Naveed and Imran Haider.
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Three out of five stars
What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
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'Gold'
Director:Anthony Hayes
Stars:Zaf Efron, Anthony Hayes
Rating:3/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
