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GLOBAL ART FORUM 2018

GLOBAL ART FORUM: UAE PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE

MONDAY 23 JULY 2018, 6:30 – 9pm

BENJAMIN WEST LECTURE THEATRE, ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS, LONDON

Taking place for the first time at the Royal Academy of Arts, this special edition of Art Dubai’s Global Art Forum – held in partnership with the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation, and the Office of Public and Cultural Diplomacy – focused on the past, present and future of art, culture and ideas in the UAE. For more than a decade, the Forum has brought together over 450 global minds, at the fair and beyond, to combine original thinking and contemporary themes. The Forum highlights the ways cultural influence resonates across the world. This evening’s event gathered some of the most notable protagonists from art, architecture, cinema and futurism, to share stories about one of the fastest changing places in the 21st century.

VIDEOS

GLOBAL ART FORUM: FULL PROGRAMME

23 July

BENJAMIN WEST LECTURE THEATRE, ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS, LONDON

6:30pm

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION: SHUMON BASAR

An overview of the Global Art Forum and introduction to the evening’s program.

6:40pm

TIMELESS: HE ZAKI NUSSEIBEH AND HANS ULRICH OBRIST

CONVERSATION

Born in Jerusalem, educated in Cambridge, Zaki Nusseibeh arrived in Abu Dhabi in 1968, three years before the unification of the United Arab Emirates. Starting out as Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan’s personal interpreter, Zaki Nusseibeh’s life of culture, education and diplomacy has grown in parallel with the making of a new nation. This conversation explored origins and evolution between the Arab 20th and 21st centuries.

7:30pm

THE PAST: AHMED AND RASHID BIN SHABIB

PRESENTATION

Cities are populated as much by unrealized architectural projects as realized ones. Abu Dhabi and Dubai are no exception. Seminal architects, such as Oscar Niemeyer and Walter Gropius, were responsible for ambitious plans which never materialized, but whose drawings outline fascinating alternative histories and futures.

7:45pm

THE PRESENT: BUTHEINA H KAZIM AND MUNIRA AL SAYEGH

CONVERSATION

From Abu Dhabi’s Louvre to the Sharjah Art Foundation and a thriving scene of independent galleries in Dubai, the UAE art ecology has expanded and diversified over the last decade and more, situating itself in the confluence of regional forces that reach out to Asia, Africa and beyond. And through Cinema Akil’s fiercely independent ethos, a new space for independent and art-house cinema has been cultivated, highlighting historic and emerging cinephilia, at a time when film culture is reinventing itself across the world.

8:15pm

THE FUTURE: DR. NOAH RAFORD

LECTURE

The Dubai Future Foundation is pursuing a dynamic, design-led approach to systemic transformation in the UAE. From the Museum of the Future (opening end of 2019) to city-scale prototypes of 3D printed buildings, self driving cars, and urban farms, this talk explored a new approach to creating the future, together.

GLOBAL ART FORUM 12: CONTRIBUTORS

COMMISSIONER

Shumon Basar is a writer, curator and cultural critic. He is Commissioner of the Global Art Forum in Dubai; Editor-at-large of Tank magazine; Contributing Editor at Bidoun magazine; Director of the Format programme at the AA School; part of Art Jameel’s Curatorial Council; and a member of Fondazione Prada’s Thought Council. His most recent book, co-authored with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist, is The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present.

SPEAKERS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Butheina Kazim is the founder of Cinema Akil, programming repertory cinema programs across the UAE. Cinema Akil is a member of the Network of Arab Alternative Screens and is the only arthouse cinema in the Gulf region. Kazim lives and works in Dubai.

HE Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh is the Minister of State in the UAE Government charged with Public and Cultural Diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation. In addition to sitting on the Board of a number of international councils, His Excellency is also the Cultural Advisor at the Ministry of Presidential Affairs.

Hans Ulrich Obrist is Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries, London. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and has curated more than 300 shows during his career. Obrist’s recent publications include Mondialité, Conversations in Colombia and The Age of Earthquakes with Douglas Coupland and Shumon Basar.

Noah Raford is the Chief Operating Officer and Futurist-in-Chief of the Dubai Future Foundation. He was also a former advisor on futures, foresight, and innovation for the UAE Prime Minister’s Office. He is currently leading the construction and curation of the Museum of the Future (opening in 2019), as well as various public sector transformation initiatives.

Munira Al Sayegh is a curator. She sits on the advisory council board of the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery. Previously she worked as Programmes Officer for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (2015-17); has curated the Abu Dhabi Art Talks program (2017); and co-curated Art Dubai Projects (2014).

Ahmed & Rashid Bin Shabib are Cultural Advisors to His Excellency Minister of State Zaki Nusseibeh at the Office of Public and Cultural Diplomacy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Over the last 10 years, they have tasked themselves with promoting the United Arab Emirates’ cultural landscape globally. Ahmed and Rashid both hold degrees from the University of Oxford in Geography and Urbanism.

ABOUT THE GLOBAL ART FORUM

The Global Art Forum is an annual, transdisciplinary summit, which combines original thinking and contemporary themes in an intimate, live environment. Since 2007, the Forum has been a key part of Art Dubai’s extensive cultural programming. It has brought together over 500 global minds from pop culture to renowned academia: artists, curators, museum directors, filmmakers, novelists, historians, philosophers, technologists, entrepreneurs, musicians and performers, dialogue with one another across disciplines, reporting from every part of the world, painting a truly 21st century portrait of how the globalized world thinks.

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