Art Jameel’s mandate includes excavating, documenting — and playing a role in creating — cultural histories of the GCC and wider Middle East. Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, opened in November, 2018 includes an open access arts library and research centre, designed to include books, papers, theses, artists’ archives, and ephemera. The arts library will be a place to access, analyse, and build art histories of the Gulf region and beyond, and also offering local audiences access to information on international artists.
The current Research Studio, the first in a series titled Annotations, focusses on the dynamic period of the early 1980s in the UAE and, in particular, on the collaborative, multidisciplinary stance taken by artists, poets, playwrights, theatre directors and writers at that time.
‘Interdisciplinary practices of the early ’80s, UAE’ follows Art Jameel’s collaboration (as Research Partner) with ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors: Positions in Play’, the National Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates 2017 exhibition curated by Hammad Naser at la Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennale). The Studio takes as inspiration an interview with the poet Khalid Albudoor and artist Nujoom Alghanem, titled “A Dialogue between Rhythm and Form”, published in the exhibition’s accompanying book.
Art Jameel’s wider research activities include our work in the Heritage field, often through collaborations with other organisations focussed on the preservation and nurturing of artisanal, architectural and archaeological skills and debates.
