The Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program is held under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of UAE Gender Balance Council, President of Dubai Women Establishment, and wife of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs UAE.
The Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program 2017 included the commissioning of Amsterdam-based artist Suzan Drummen, whose practice focuses on installations that challenge and intensify the viewer’s visual perception and experience.
The program featured Expanding Treasures, a project by lead artist, Amsterdam-based Suzan Drummen, who was joined by a group of UAE-based apprentice artists and designers looking to specialise in children’s art education. The workshops saw families and children working together to create large-scale temporary installations inspired by patterns, colours and eye-catching materials. During the sessions, children were guided by Drummen and the apprentice artists as they explored materials and themes that interested them. The sessions allowed participants the opportunity to explore their creative potential.
For the first time, the Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program featured daily drop-in workshops. The additional sessions allowed more children the opportunity to experience the program and join without requiring prior sign-up.
The program’s fifth itineration also featured its popular Discovery Tours, led by UAE-based and international artists.
The tailor-made tours are designed to enable young children to discover key pieces around the fair, with the works brought alive via thematic activity maps and the storytelling of the guides. The tours are split across three age groups (ages 5-7), (ages 8-12) and (ages 13-18).
Suzan Drummen is a multi-disciplinary visual artist based in the Netherlands. Her colourful works include installations made of glittering gems, crystals, precious stones, optical glass, mirrors and chrome-plated metals that have been laid freely on the ground. Upon closer inspection, the fine details dazzle and overwhelm the viewer with complex detail and stimuli, thus challenging and intensifying the viewer’s visual perception and experience.
Suzan Drummen realized more than 40 artworks in the public spaces and her work has been shown in many solo and group shows. The work is in several private and public collections including : Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam, Bonnefanten Museum Maastricht, Museum Bommel van Dam Venlo Europees Parlement Brussel, Centraal Museum Utrecht and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Drummen is a Fine Arts Professor at Minerva Art Academy Hanze University of Applied Sciences, in The Netherlands.
