UAE NOW, a new segment at Art Dubai, is designed to explore the country’s emerging artist-run platforms by putting the spotlight on youth and independent, home-grown subcultures. The goal is to highlight the organizations and their place in the evolving landscape, bringing to the fore the important contribution of grassroots platforms and the underground in creating new ways of thinking, theory and artistic movements.
The platforms invited to participate and showcase their respective initiatives in the way of their choosing are:
- Bait 15, an artist-run studio and exhibition space in Abu Dhabi and the only platform to have its own physical space
- Banat Collective, a creative online community to discuss womanhood in the Middle East and North Africa
- Daftar Asfar, a ‘travelling sketchbook’ which invites artists to create an interesting collection of artworks within its pages
- Jaffat el Aqlam, a platform for the written and spoken word
- PAC (Public Art Collective), a research based organisation dedicated to question the role of the artist in the public realm in the UAE.
“Visitors will be able to see the real story of the nation’s creative atmosphere, one that is unhindered by commercial obligation, reliant on collaboration and establishing networks in order to create a voice that can elevate itself internationally,” said Al Sayegh, the independent curator of UAE NOW.
