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.
8 UAE companies helping families reduce their carbon footprint
Greenheart Organic Farms
This Dubai company was one of the country’s first organic farms, set up in 2012, and it now delivers a wide array of fruits and vegetables grown regionally or in the UAE, as well as other grocery items, to both Dubai and Abu Dhabi doorsteps.
www.greenheartuae.com
Modibodi
Founded in Australia, Modibodi is now in the UAE with waste-free, reusable underwear that eliminates the litter created by a woman’s monthly cycle, which adds up to approximately 136kgs of sanitary waste over a lifetime.
www.modibodi.ae
The Good Karma Co
From brushes made of plant fibres to eco-friendly storage solutions, this company has planet-friendly alternatives to almost everything we need, including tin foil and toothbrushes.
www.instagram.com/thegoodkarmaco
Re:told
One Dubai boutique, Re:told, is taking second-hand garments and selling them on at a fraction of the price, helping to cut back on the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of clothes thrown into landfills each year.
www.shopretold.com
Lush
Lush provides products such as shampoo and conditioner as package-free bars with reusable tins to store.
www.mena.lush.com
Bubble Bro
Offering filtered, still and sparkling water on tap, Bubble Bro is attempting to ensure we don’t produce plastic or glass waste. Founded in 2017 by Adel Abu-Aysha, the company is on track to exceeding its target of saving one million bottles by the end of the year.
www.bubble-bro.com
Coethical
This company offers refillable, eco-friendly home cleaning and hygiene products that are all biodegradable, free of chemicals and certifiably not tested on animals.
www.instagram.com/coethical
Eggs & Soldiers
This bricks-and-mortar shop and e-store, founded by a Dubai mum-of-four, is the place to go for all manner of family products – from reusable cloth diapers to organic skincare and sustainable toys.
www.eggsnsoldiers.com
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
Funding to date: $15 million
Jetour T1 specs
Engine: 2-litre turbocharged
Power: 254hp
Torque: 390Nm
Price: From Dh126,000
Available: Now
Why it pays to compare
A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.
Route 1: bank transfer
The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.
Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount
Total received: €4,670.30
Route 2: online platform
The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.
Total cost: Dh74.10, around 0.4 per cent of the transaction
Total received: €4,756
The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.
What can you do?
Document everything immediately; including dates, times, locations and witnesses
Seek professional advice from a legal expert
You can report an incident to HR or an immediate supervisor
You can use the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation’s dedicated hotline
In criminal cases, you can contact the police for additional support
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
THE BIO
Favourite book: ‘Purpose Driven Life’ by Rick Warren
Favourite travel destination: Switzerland
Hobbies: Travelling and following motivational speeches and speakers
Favourite place in UAE: Dubai Museum
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh117,059
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How to join and use Abu Dhabi’s public libraries
• There are six libraries in Abu Dhabi emirate run by the Department of Culture and Tourism, including one in Al Ain and Al Dhafra.
• Libraries are free to visit and visitors can consult books, use online resources and study there. Most are open from 8am to 8pm on weekdays, closed on Fridays and have variable hours on Saturdays, except for Qasr Al Watan which is open from 10am to 8pm every day.
• In order to borrow books, visitors must join the service by providing a passport photograph, Emirates ID and a refundable deposit of Dh400. Members can borrow five books for three weeks, all of which are renewable up to two times online.
• If users do not wish to pay the fee, they can still use the library’s electronic resources for free by simply registering on the website. Once registered, a username and password is provided, allowing remote access.
• For more information visit the library network's website.
Who was Alfred Nobel?
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel.
- In his will he dictated that the bulk of his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
- Nobel is best known as the inventor of dynamite, but also wrote poetry and drama and could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.
- Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
Company Profile
Founder: Omar Onsi
Launched: 2018
Employees: 35
Financing stage: Seed round ($12 million)
Investors: B&Y, Phoenician Funds, M1 Group, Shorooq Partners
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
THE SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre, four-cylinder turbo
Transmission: seven-speed dual clutch automatic
Power: 169bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: Dh54,500
On sale: now
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Company profile
Company: Rent Your Wardrobe
Date started: May 2021
Founder: Mamta Arora
Based: Dubai
Sector: Clothes rental subscription
Stage: Bootstrapped, self-funded
PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
French business
France has organised a delegation of leading businesses to travel to Syria. The group was led by French shipping giant CMA CGM, which struck a 30-year contract in May with the Syrian government to develop and run Latakia port. Also present were water and waste management company Suez, defence multinational Thales, and Ellipse Group, which is currently looking into rehabilitating Syrian hospitals.
