Creating New Worlds, Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program 2019, Courtesy of Photo Solutions (Art Dubai 2019)

The Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program featured lead artist Sally Curcio for its 2019 edition. Creating New Worlds invited children to explore cityscapes and re-imagine urban landscapes through the use of miniatures and prototypes. The workshops motivated invention, cooperation, new perspectives, and exploration of how different materials can be composed to create new imagined environments. The Discovery Tours also returned in 2019, led by UAE-based and international artists. Specially designed for children between the ages of 5 to 17, the tailor-made tours enable young people to discover key pieces around the fair, with the works brought alive via thematic activity maps and the storytelling of the guides.

Sally Curcio has, over the past 18 years, created art that captures the imagination of both children and adults, by making playful miniature worlds that are both visually complex and accessible. She calls these works “Bubble Sculptures,” as the worlds are enclosed in a protective transparent bubble. Many associations can be brought to the Bubble Sculptures: nostalgia for the innocence of childhood; the fragility of the environment; and, representations of imagined and utopian possibilities. Perhaps, as we long for a more harmonious world, Curcio’s Bubble Sculptures also communicate an openness as to what may be possible.

Sally Curcio has exhibited her work throughout the United States of America and internationally. Her work is in the permanent collections of Smith College Museum of Art, the Fitchburg Art Museum, NYU Langone Hospital, and the Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital, NYC. She has exhibited her work at the Peabody Essex Museum, the Bruce Museum and the Children’s Museum of the Arts, NYC.

Please email amal@artdubai.ae for any questions.