Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim, Land Shift and Fresh Salt

A land art intervention and sculpture by Emirati artist Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim, Land shift was an exchange of a piece of land from Oman with another from Dubai. These exchanged surfaces conflated borders, value and property. Fresh and Salt comprised a sculpture made of salt water stones from the coast of the UAE and fresh water stones from the Caspian sea, wrapped with copper wire.

Jessica Mein, Safety First and Avesso

Three installations using discarded building materials as a primary source material, Jessica Mein produced works that engaged with both the site of the fair as well as the city of Dubai. Avesso, an intervention on a billboard on Al Khail Road invoked questions about infrastructures and their surfaces, while the artwork under the same title at Madinat Jumeirah responded to the context of both the hotel and Art Dubai. For this installation, Mein re-purposed four dilapidated hoarding panels used by the hotel during preparation for events. Safety First was a construction fence built to block part of the scenic view of the creek between Madinat Jumeirah and Mina A’Salam hotel.

Hind Mezaina, It may have been where the tales of Sinbad and Aladdin came from

Hind Mezaina researched the developments that have been happening in Dubai since the 1970s and 80s through photography and archival material. Focusing on the area of Deira, Hind made It may have been where the tales of Sinbad and Aladdin came from, a narrated video out of her still photography, where she took images of the fast changing construction sites and areas around them.

The material used in her script was taken from various resources, fiction, fact and especially PR language. A monitor placed next to the video displayed archival footage from the 1960s and 70s, shot in Deira. The installation’s form, on wooden board and monitors, reflects the fast changing and breaking up of public space and personal memories.

Sharmeen Syed, Of a Radical Hospitality: episodes of conditions, transgressions and impossibility

Audio tour and installation by Sharmeen Syed, based on research of horticultural and gardening histories in Dubai and Madinat Jumeirah as a site. Through an audio guide leading the audience through Art Dubai Modern to a garden installation of native plants, one learnt about the fluctuations of hospitality. In the garden, plants sat quietly in a gravel patch while bearing witness to a history of migrations while playing welcoming host.

Rheim Alkadhi, Objects at an Art Fair: Program of Four Interventions and On the Labor of Lovers

Durational performances by Rheim Alkadhi, activated along roaming contact points in the corridors and halls of Art Dubai during which objects were offered to visitors. On the Labor of Lovers compromised moist towelettes, cut, sewn and folded, and presented to guests as refreshment. The moist towelettes were made from the clothes of unknown inhabitants of the city. Synaesthetic Fragrance was a scent that had no smell, nothing but colour. In Supplication Activity, viewers were asked to write their deepest desires on the back of any bill of sale, to be sealed in a metal locket by wax from a scented candle from Dubai Mall. Hairs of the Oppressed are giant eyelashes worn in a theatre of inverted scale.