Over the past few years, via programmes such as the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship (Seaf), Campus Art Dubai, the Youth Takeover by Jameel Arts Centre, and new art and visual culture programmes at Zayed University and American University in Dubai, a new generation of artists have been emerging in the UAE.
These artists are looking at subjects such as the formation of memories, emotions, folkloric tales, science-fiction, techno-progressivism and the value of painstaking, labor-intensive craft practices. If that seems like a broad list, it is: the amount of young artists across Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi is mushrooming, and any attempt to summarise the focus of their inquiries will happily fall short.
With that in mind, here are a few of the artists The National has its eye on.
Moza Al Matrooshi
The Dubai-born artist recently returned from London where she received an MFA at the Slade School Art. Her work investigates the particularities embedded in language, via food. For the Lahore Biennale, she screened the video Glaze, of sweets sellers in Sharjah, at a Lahore tea house. A menu provided some of the food in the video so that the work could be literally consumed. Her other performances act as social experiments, testing to what extent food can be separated from the social life it gives rise to.
Sarah Al Mehairi
Raised in Abu Dhabi, Sarah Al Mehairi graduated in 2019 from NYUAD, and had her first solo show at Carbon 12 even before she finished her fellowship at Seaf. Her formal, puzzle-like sculptures of different shades of wood appear like painterly abstractions, which she underscores by staining the wood in different colours to achieve a trompe-l'oeil effect. For a series of plasterworks, A Filled Form is Familiar, now up at the Seaf show at Warehouse421, she cast a Styrofoam box in plaster 40 times in plaster, changing one element of the composition each time, so there is no original to the series.
Mariam Al Zayani & Nasser Al Zayani
The Bahraini-American brother and sister were commissioned by the Youth Takeover to show at Jameel Arts Centre, where they installed works throughout the buildings so that visitors would move through the pair's disjunctive memories. They continued this theme in a workshop, where they investigated how memory can live between people. They asked pairs of family members to recall an experience separately and together, co-creating a third document that amalgamated both member's reminiscences. Memory also inflects Nasser's individual work, such as when he cast script into tablets of crumbling sand.
Mona Ayyash
The Palestinian artist, who was raised in Dubai, is interested in the media imagery around sport, produced as a spectacle but given to smaller moments of stillness and even boredom. She took moments from found footage – a gymnast circling a bar, a swimmer diving into the water – and looped them, so that the forward momentum of the athletes was trapped, and their goal-orientated actions transformed simply into a mechanism of display. At the exhibition of this work, at the UAE Unlimited show Tashweesh at the Maraya Art Centre in 2019, she added bleachers to the video, inviting the audience to sit as sports fans for this truncated imagery. Ayyash is currently an artist-in-residence at Warehouse421.
Nadine Ghandour
The Egyptian artist, who lives and works in Dubai, reflects the world around her in the abstract language of shapes, rendered in charcoal drawings and Plasticine sculptures. Her work pays attention to the spaces in between or the proportions of a room, and considers how they might direct our experience without our even being aware. Working also as part of Office Run, with Ayyash, her work also has a curatorial dimension, converting disused spaces into sites of potential collaboration.
Sree
An Indian artist raised in Dubai, Sree recently made a work invoking Dubai through smell: pools of ground turmeric lay on the floor of the Jameel Arts Centre during its Youth Takeover. Across the wall, a video played of the city, shot from a low vantage point as if via the eyes of a child. The work, 1958_sand, took its title from the year the first Hindu temple was inaugurated in Dubai. It crosses this historic, if forgotten event with the domesticity of childhood memories. Looking back isn't easy: the smell of the turmeric was overpowering.
Mohamed Khalid
A graduate of Campus Art Dubai and the Seaf programme, Mohamed Khalid casts his eye on everyday items –those sold on Dubizzle or discarded receipts – and coaxes out of them their metaphoric potential. The malfunction of receipts from parking machines at Dubai Mall becomes a stand-in for the role of the artist, gumming up the societal machine but somehow failing, he says, to make a real difference. At the Jameel Arts Centre's Youth Takeover, Khalid overlaid graphite panels in the lift, mimicking those in his apartment block's lifts, which he saw as ad hoc message boards for unprompted exclamations such as "I love the UAE" or "I love Pakistan". The work turned out to be more successful than he or the curators had expected: by the end of the show, the panels had been etched with graffiti.
Tala Khalil
A Palestinian artist raised in the UAE, Khalil is interested in identity and heritage as living, changing practices. For the Jameel Arts Centre's Youth Takeover recently, part of her contribution was a workshop in how to dance the dabke, which took place online and outside in the centre's sculpture park. Elsewhere she works in a host of media, from writing to experimental film, installations, photography to understanding how traditions mediate between the individual and the collective. Her posterShu Baarfni (How Would I Know?) was one of the winners of the 100 Best Arabic Posters in 2018, shown at Warehouse421.
Augustine Paredes
The Filipino-born photographer documents life in Dubai, imbuing the city with the romanticism of the after dark hours. He has an eye for finding glamour in hidden places, and indeed the artist has also worked commercially for brands such as Gucci and Les Benjamins. For his contribution to A Picture Held Us Captive, the show curated by Nada Raza for Abu Dhabi Art, he read from his book of poetry Conversations at the End of the Universe. The story is a performance of empathy, segueing from his learning of a friend's unexpected death to reminiscences of his mother, talking to her husband at his graveside. Paredes is currently making a body of work about Mina Zayed with fellow participants of the W421 x GPP Photography Mentorship Programme. It will be on show at Gulf Photo Plus and Warehouse421 next year.
Malda Smadi
Smadi, who was born in Damascus and grew up in Dubai, began at Seaf with a portraiture practice that has expanded outwards into portraiture in the widest sense: paintings, photographs, drawings of people and the way they live and feel. Showing in the current sale on the 101 art platform, her drawings of women branch out into threads sewn on to collaged fabric, while a new series of work tackles the fear and dread experienced by many this year. Smadi also compiles In Transit Archives, in which she records a series of conversations with women in the UAE, discussing stories
that concern them.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
if you go
The flights
Direct flights from the UAE to the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, are available with Air Arabia, (www.airarabia.com) Fly Dubai (www.flydubai.com) or Etihad (www.etihad.com) from Dh1,200 return including taxes. The trek described here started from Jomson, but there are many other start and end point variations depending on how you tailor your trek. To get to Jomson from Kathmandu you must first fly to the lake-side resort town of Pokhara with either Buddha Air (www.buddhaair.com) or Yeti Airlines (www.yetiairlines.com). Both charge around US$240 (Dh880) return. From Pokhara there are early morning flights to Jomson with Yeti Airlines or Simrik Airlines (www.simrikairlines.com) for around US$220 (Dh800) return.
The trek
Restricted area permits (US$500 per person) are required for trekking in the Upper Mustang area. The challenging Meso Kanto pass between Tilcho Lake and Jomson should not be attempted by those without a lot of mountain experience and a good support team. An excellent trekking company with good knowledge of Upper Mustang, the Annaurpuna Circuit and Tilcho Lake area and who can help organise a version of the trek described here is the Nepal-UK run Snow Cat Travel (www.snowcattravel.com). Prices vary widely depending on accommodation types and the level of assistance required.
UAE cricketers abroad
Sid Jhurani is not the first cricketer from the UAE to go to the UK to try his luck.
Rameez Shahzad Played alongside Ben Stokes and Liam Plunkett in Durham while he was studying there. He also played club cricket as an overseas professional, but his time in the UK stunted his UAE career. The batsman went a decade without playing for the national team.
Yodhin Punja The seam bowler was named in the UAE’s extended World Cup squad in 2015 despite being just 15 at the time. He made his senior UAE debut aged 16, and subsequently took up a scholarship at Claremont High School in the south of England.
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
more from Janine di Giovanni
Brief scoreline:
Toss: South Africa, elected to bowl first
England (311-8): Stokes 89, Morgan 57, Roy 54, Root 51; Ngidi 3-66
South Africa (207): De Kock 68, Van der Dussen 50; Archer 3-27, Stokes 2-12
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The biog
Born: near Sialkot, Pakistan, 1981
Profession: Driver
Family: wife, son (11), daughter (8)
Favourite drink: chai karak
Favourite place in Dubai: The neighbourhood of Khawaneej. “When I see the old houses over there, near the date palms, I can be reminded of my old times. If I don’t go down I cannot recall my old times.”
Poacher
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RESULTS
5pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (Dirt) 1,600m
Winner: Samau Xmnsor, Abdul Aziz Al Balushi (jockey), Ibrahim Al Hadhrami (trainer)
5.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Ottoman, Szczepan Mazur, Abdallah Al Hammadi
6pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,800m
Winner: Sharkh, Patrick Cosgrave, Helal Al Alawi
6.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 85,000 (D) 1,800m
Winner: Yaraa, Fernando Jara, Majed Al Jahouri
7pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 2,000m
Winner: Maaly Al Reef, Bernardo Pinheiro, Abdallah Al Hammadi
7.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,000m
Winner: Jinjal, Fabrice Veron, Ahmed Al Shemaili
8pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,000m
Winner: Al Sail, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
MATCH INFO
Barcelona 5 (Lenglet 2', Vidal 29', Messi 34', 75', Suarez 77')
Valladolid 1 (Kiko 15')
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Naga
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Kamindu Mendis bio
Full name: Pasqual Handi Kamindu Dilanka Mendis
Born: September 30, 1998
Age: 20 years and 26 days
Nationality: Sri Lankan
Major teams Sri Lanka's Under 19 team
Batting style: Left-hander
Bowling style: Right-arm off-spin and slow left-arm orthodox (that's right!)
Takreem Awards winners 2021
Corporate Leadership: Carl Bistany (Lebanon)
Cultural Excellence: Hoor Al Qasimi (UAE)
Environmental Development and Sustainability: Bkerzay (Lebanon)
Environmental Development and Sustainability: Raya Ani (Iraq)
Humanitarian and Civic Services: Women’s Programs Association (Lebanon)
Humanitarian and Civic Services: Osamah Al Thini (Libya)
Excellence in Education: World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) (Qatar)
Outstanding Arab Woman: Balghis Badri (Sudan)
Scientific and Technological Achievement: Mohamed Slim Alouini (KSA)
Young Entrepreneur: Omar Itani (Lebanon)
Lifetime Achievement: Suad Al Amiry (Palestine)
