Over 40 local and international contributors to participate in the 8th iteration of the Global Art Forum, titled ‘Meanwhile…History’

 

Global Art Forum, the leading regional platform for cultural debate and one of the most innovative of arts conferences worldwide, comes back in 2014 with participants from the worlds of art, architecture, film, literature, history, theatre and commentary! Taking place over five days—March 15-16 in Katara, Doha and March 19-21 in Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai—the Forum is known as.

Titled Meanwhile…History, the Forum focuses on an imagined timeline of turning points in history—significant decades, years, days, minutes or seconds that shifted an understanding of the world. The Forum includes live talks, presentations and debates, plus commissioned projects and research.

Meanwhile…History has been programmed by writer Shumon Basar; the curator-translator Omar Berrada, co-director of Dar al-Ma’mûn in Marrakech; and the artist and curator Ala Younis.

The highlights of Meanwhile…History are a journey in Ibn Khaldun’s medieval treatise, the Muqaddimah; Soviet Orientalism; American Cold War paranoia; a hundred years of the art exhibition Documenta; several millennia of the pearling industry of the Gulf; the “Short Seventies” in the UAE and across the world; as well as cultural experiments in Kuwait; Iranian art collections in Dubai; Africa in 1966; and creative lapses in storytelling and Facebook timelines.

The Global Art Forum’s fellowship programme Forum Fellows returns this year with a focus on curating, led by writer and curator Tirdad Zolghadr. This intensive programme of workshops enables exceptional upcoming curators from the Middle East to exchange ideas and experience. Fellows selected for the 2014 programme are: Amanda Abi Khalil (Beirut); Azar Mahmoudian (Tehran); Yasmina Reggad (Algiers); Yara Saqfalhait (Ramallah), and Ania Szremski (Cairo).

Free, and open to all, this year’s Global Art Forum will be simultaneously translated into Arabic/English, and will be live-streamed globally and to sites within the fair, thanks to the support of Ibraaz/Kamel Lazaar Foundation, the online partner of the Global Art Forum in 2014. For more information and the schedule of live talks and events, please check the schedule.

 

ART DUBAI PROJECTS 2014: THE FAIR’S MOST DYNAMIC PROGRAMME OF NEW COMMISSIONS

Art Dubai Projects, the fair’s commitment to sustaining a dialogue with its immediate environment and working in partnership with institutions and artists, is a curated, not-for-profit programme of new commissions. Selected artists are invited to create works that engage audiences and interact with and comment on the fair and its environment.

This dynamic programme includes established and upcoming artists and artists’ collectives from across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Artists selected for Art Dubai Projects 2014 include Nadia Ayari, Youmna Chlala, Clark House Initiative, Sunoj D, Maitha Demithan, Sara Al Haddad, Shuruq Harb, Amina Menia, Maryam Al Qassimi, Mounira Al Solh, and Hajra Waheed. The programme includes site-specific installations, performances, video and research projects developed and organised with this year’s Projects Curator, Fawz Kabra.

The commissions will be presented throughout the fair-grounds of Art Dubai, and intervene in the catalogue and related digital platforms. For the first time, artists and collectives will engage with Art Dubai Modern—the newly launched gallery hall dedicated to 20th century art from the Arab world, Iran and South Asia as well as Art Dubai’s contemporary gallery halls; Marker: Central Asia and the Caucasus; and the Global Art Forum.

Art Dubai Projects is held in parallel to A.i.R Dubai— the residency programme run by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, Tashkeel, Delfina Foundation and Art Dubai. The selected artists participating in A.i.R 2014 will be resident in Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood from January to March and will create works for Open Studios Exhibition in Sikka, as well as their projects at Art Dubai.

Over the past seven years, Art Dubai Projects has become recognised as an ‘incubator’ for the most exciting artists and curators coming out of the Middle East and Asia, and is instrumental in fostering talent from the region.  For more information, click here.

 

Cheers