After more than 10 weeks of closure due to Covid-19, Jameel Art Centre is set to reopen its doors to the public on Wednesday, June 3.
As it restarts operations, the contemporary art institution, located along Al Jaddaf Waterfront in Dubai's Bur Dubai area, has introduced new guidelines for the public to ensure social distancing. While admission remains free, visitors must book a two-hour slot online in advance so the centre can monitor capacity.
As with other public places in the UAE, visitors must undergo temperature checks at the entrance and wear face masks. Each gallery has been designated a certain capacity, and security staff will ensure that this is maintained.
Despite its physical space being shuttered on March 16 due to government regulations, the centre had been quick to move a number of its activities online, including educational resources for children and a virtual version of its Jaddaf Aloud cultural event, which featured artist workshops and experimental films.
Nevertheless, the closure has affected the centre’s programming schedule, which has now been recalibrated. “Our entire calendar has shifted through 2020 to 2023,” says Antonia Carver, director of Art Jameel.
Jameel Arts Centre has extended two of its current exhibitions, which were slated to end in August. The major survey exhibition on renowned artist Michael Rakowitz, showcasing large-installations that reflect on material culture in the region, will now run until November. Lubna Chowdhary’s ceramic sculptures in the installation titled Metropolis will remain until October.
Carver notes that extending Rakowitz’s show meant holding negotiations with 30 different museums and collectors. “A museum exhibition calendar… is so complex – shows are often years in the planning and dates forensically worked out with the artist and all the various multiple partners involved. We were lucky in being the last venue for Michael Rakowitz’s major survey show and in working with an enthusiastic, dedicated artist who is so excited to share his work with the UAE and regional public,” she says.
Across the world, the pandemic has exposed grave inequalities and the fragility of support systems within industries, arts and culture being one of them. Globally, artists and art professionals, including galleries, are facing loss of income and financial uncertainty.
In April, Jameel Arts Centre stepped in to help artists, particularly those whose projects have been disrupted due to the pandemic. For its micro-funding initiative, Art Jameel Research and Practice Platform, the centre has set aside Dh550,000 worth of grants to give to artists, writers and curators in the Middle East. The platform is accepting applications for its third and final cycle until Sunday, June 7.
“Very quickly into this crisis, artists and curators came to us from the UAE and around the region, and explained their predicament. We decided we should act fast and repurpose existing budgets into [our] rapid-response programme,” explains Carver.
“This has been a moment of real reckoning for the regional arts scene, and has thrown into sharp relief the precarity of culture, in general,” she says, adding talk of reinvention within these systems may be too early – cultural institutions and practitioners are presently in “survival mode”.
The centre has not been immune to these monetary challenges either. “Like museums globally, we are dealing with a loss of income from our enterprises, including our shop and third-party events, while we’ve been closed, plus budget cuts. We are learning to cope with this, and hoping for better times ahead,” she says.
On Wednesday, June 10, Jameel Arts Centre will present new interations of their Artist’s Rooms series, with works by Larissa Sansour, Taysir Batniji and Lawrence Abu Hamdan.
The venue will be open daily except Tuesdays, from 10am to 6pm. Children aged below 12 and adults over the age of 60 are not allowed to visit as per UAE regulations.
More information can be found on jameelartscentre.org
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Hotel Data Cloud profile
Date started: June 2016
Founders: Gregor Amon and Kevin Czok
Based: Dubai
Sector: Travel Tech
Size: 10 employees
Funding: $350,000 (Dh1.3 million)
Investors: five angel investors (undisclosed except for Amar Shubar)
Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
if you go
The flights
Flydubai offers three daily direct flights to Sarajevo and, from June, a daily flight from Thessaloniki from Dubai. A return flight costs from Dhs1,905 including taxes.
The trip
The Travel Scientists are the organisers of the Balkan Ride and several other rallies around the world. The 2018 running of this particular adventure will take place from August 3-11, once again starting in Sarajevo and ending a week later in Thessaloniki. If you’re driving your own vehicle, then entry start from €880 (Dhs 3,900) per person including all accommodation along the route. Contact the Travel Scientists if you wish to hire one of their vehicles.
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
House-hunting
Top 10 locations for inquiries from US house hunters, according to Rightmove
- Edinburgh, Scotland
- Westminster, London
- Camden, London
- Glasgow, Scotland
- Islington, London
- Kensington and Chelsea, London
- Highlands, Scotland
- Argyll and Bute, Scotland
- Fife, Scotland
- Tower Hamlets, London
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Friday Stuttgart v Cologne (Kick-off 10.30pm UAE)
Saturday RB Leipzig v Hertha Berlin (5.30pm)
Mainz v Borussia Monchengladbach (5.30pm)
Bayern Munich v Eintracht Frankfurt (5.30pm)
Union Berlin v SC Freiburg (5.30pm)
Borussia Dortmund v Schalke (5.30pm)
Sunday Wolfsburg v Arminia (6.30pm)
Werder Bremen v Hoffenheim (9pm)
Bayer Leverkusen v Augsburg (11.30pm)
THREE
%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Nayla%20Al%20Khaja%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EStarring%3A%20Jefferson%20Hall%2C%20Faten%20Ahmed%2C%20Noura%20Alabed%2C%20Saud%20Alzarooni%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ERating%3A%203.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Director: Jon Watts
Stars: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon
Rating:*****
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
How to donate
Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
2289 – Dh10
2252 – Dh 50
6025 – Dh20
6027 – Dh 100
6026 – Dh 200
Oppenheimer
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