Global Art Forum 10: Programme (English)

ART DUBAI MARCH 16-19, 2016 GLOBAL ART FORUM PROGRAMME

ARTDUBAI.AE

STRATEGIC PARTNER

HELD UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF HIS HIGHNESS SHEIKH MOHAMMED BIN RASHID AL MAKTOUM, VICEPRESIDENT AND PRIME MINISTER OF THE UAE, RULER OF DUBAI

PROGRAMME PARTNER

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The Global Art Forum was launched by Art Dubai at its inaugural fair in 2007. In 2016, it is presented by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority and supported by Dubai Design District (d3).

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GLOBAL ART FORUM THE FUTURE WAS January 9, 2016 Dubai Design District (d3) Hai d3, Dubai January 14, 2016 Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Theatre, London March 16-18, 2016 Art Dubai, Fort Island, Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai Co-directors: Amal Khalaf Uzma Z. Rizvi Commissioner: Shumon Basar

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CONTENTS

Daily Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Global Art Forum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

DAILY SCHEDULE

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Day 1 and 2 of the Global Art Forum took place on January 9 and 14 in Dubai and London.

For more information visit artdubai.ae Please see page 26 for Day 1-2 session descriptions.

Please see page 33 for Day 3-5 session descriptions.

WEDNESDAY MARCH 16 ART DUBAI, FORT ISLAND, MADINAT JUMEIRAH, DUBAI DAY 03 3:00 – 3:15pm WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION Amal Khalaf and Uzma Z. Rizvi with Commissioner Shumon Basar and Antonia Carver (Director, Art Dubai Fair) 3:15 – 4:00PM DISCUSSION THE FUTURE WAS THE PAST Germano Celant (Director, Fondazione Prada), Hans Ulrich Obrist (Co-Director, Exhibitions and Programmes, Serpentine Galleries), Francesco Vezzoli (Artist) and Commissioner Shumon Basar 4:00 – 4:15pm POSTCARD FROM THE FUTURE Joana Hadjithomas (Artist)

Daily Schedule

4:15 – 4:45pm PRESENTATION THE FUTURE WAS THE MARKET Elie Ayache (CEO and co-founder of ITO 33) 4:45 – 5:00pm INTERMISSION 5:00 – 5:30pm CONVERSATION THE FUTURE WAS THE FUTURE Hito Steyerl (filmmaker and writer), Commissioner Shumon Basar (Writer and Global Art Forum 10 Commissioner)

6:00 – 6:30pm CONVERSATION THE FUTURE WAS COLLECTIVE Adrienne Maree Brown (Writer) and Amal Khalaf

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5:30 – 6:00pm CONVERSATION THE FUTURE WAS OVERCAST Sohrab Mahdavi (Writer), Tirdad Zolghadr (Curator and writer)

6:30 – 7:00pm PERFORMANCE THE FUTURE WAS TWO SEMI-CIRCLES (AWAY FROM THE FACE) Christine Sun Kim (Sound Artist)

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THURSDAY MARCH 17 ART DUBAI, FORT ISLAND, MADINAT JUMEIRAH, DUBAI DAY 04 3:00 – 3:15PM WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION Amal Khalaf and Uzma Z. Rizvi with Commissioner Shumon Basar 3:15 – 3:30PM POSTCARD FORM THE FUTURE Mishaal Al Gergawi (Writer, Director of the Delma Institute and Cofounder of Cinema Akil) 3:30 – 4:00PM PRESENTATION THE FUTURE WAS CLOUD João Ribas (Senior Curator and Deputy Director, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art) 4:00 – 4:15PM POSTCARD FORM THE FUTURE Noah Raford (Advisor, Special Projects, UAE Prime Minister’s Office)

Daily Schedule

4:15 – 5:00PM DISCUSSION THE FUTURE WAS DESERT Lauren Beukes (Novelist, comics writer, TV script writer), Sophia Al-Maria (Artist and writer), Commissioner Shumon Basar 5:00 – 5:15PM INTERMISSION 5:15 – 6:00PM DISCUSSION THE FUTURE WAS SCI-FI Mohammad Al Hammadi (Writer), Noura Al Noman (Writer for Children & Young Adults), Amal Khalaf and Uzma Z. Rizvi

6:15 – 7:00PM PERCEPTION Glenn D. Lowry (Director, the Museum of Modern Art, MOMA) and eL Seed (Artist)

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6:00 – 6:15PM POSTCARD FORM THE FUTURE Yasmina Reggad (Independent Curator and Writer)

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FRIDAY MARCH 18 ART DUBAI, FORT ISLAND, MADINAT JUMEIRAH, DUBAI DAY 05 The afternoon features tweets from the future by Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi (UAE Columnist, Founder, Barjeel Art Foundation) 4:00 – 4:15PM WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION Amal Khalaf and Uzma Z. Rizvi with Commissioner Shumon Basar 4:15 – 4:45PM PRESENTATION THE FUTURE WAS DUBAI Ahmed and Rashid Bin Shabib (Urbanists) 4:45 – 5:15PM THE FUTURE WAS SMART Liam Young (Architect and Co-founder, Tomorrows Thoughts Today and Unknown Feilds) 5:15 – 6:00PM CONVERSATION THE FUTURE WAS SPACE Alice Gorman (Senior Lecturer, Department of Archaeology, Flinders University)

Daily Schedule

6:00 – 6:30PM CONVERSATION THE FUTURE WAS ENCHANTED Nada Raza (Curator, Tate Modern; ‘The Missing One’ at Dhaka Art Summit 2016) 6:30 – 7:00PM PERFORMANCE The Future Was the Future Dichroic Monira Al Qadiri (Artist)

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GLOBAL ART FORUM

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Featuring live talks guided by a curated theme, the Global Art Forum brings together a diverse line-up of participants, including artists, curators, musicians, strategists, thinkers and writers.

The Global Art Forum was launched by Art Dubai at its inaugural fair in 2007. In 2016, it is presented by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority and supported by Dubai Design District. The January sessions in London were held in partnership with the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA).

The Financial Times is the international media partner of the Global Art Forum in 2016.

The British Council has kindly supported the appearance of UK-based speakers at the 2016 forum.

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Writes Shumon Basar: Does it feel as if the future was once ahead of us, far away, but now the future surrounds us in our present, on our screens, with each compulsive finger-swipe?

What were the great dreams of what was to come? What will they be?

In customary fashion, the Global Art Forum will convene the most compelling minds from across and above planet Earth to tell untold histories and share speculative stories.

The 21st century continues to measure new modernities - from Mumbai to Tehran to Dubai and beyond - with skyscrapers, satellites and space races, even as new futures are imagined, invented and rejected. Because the future is always unevenly distributed in its meaning, its memory and emotive draw. What else might the word “future” mean and why does it resist ever being fully understood?

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THE FUTURE WAS The tenth edition of the Global Art Forum explores the ways in which artists, writers, technologists, historians, musicians and thinkers have imagined – and are shaping – the future. Titled The Future Was, the Forum is conceived by Shumon Basar as Commissioner, with Amal Khalaf and Uzma Z. Rizvi as Codirectors. The Forum took place in Dubai and London in January 2016, and continued at its home at Art Dubai, March 16-19, 2016.

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CO-DIRECTORS Amal Khalaf is an artist, researcher and curator. She is the Projects Curator at the Serpentine Galleries and has been working on the Edgware Road Project since its inception in 2009. She is currently Commissioning Editor of Projects for online platform, Ibraaz and a founding member of artist collective GCC, as well as a trustee of the Crossway Foundation. @amalandaplan

Uzma Z. Rizvi is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies at the Pratt Institute of Art and Design, Brooklyn and a Visiting Scholar in the Department of International Studies at the American University of Sharjah. Recent publications include ‘Crafting Resonance: Empathy and Belonging in Ancient Rajasthan’ (2015), ‘Decolonizing Archaeology: On the Global Heritage of Epistemic Laziness’ (2015) and World Archaeological Congress Research Handbook on Postcolonial Archaeology (2010). @UzmaZRizvi

COMMISSIONER Shumon Basar was Director of Global Art Forum 6, Commissioner of Global Art Forum 7 and 8 and Director-at-Large of Global Art Forum 9. Co-author with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist of The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present, he is also a founding member of the Fondazione Prada’s 'Thought Council. @shumonbasar

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CONTRIBUTERS Sarah Amiri Elie Ayache Lauren Beukes Adrienne Maree Brown Antonia Carver Germano Celant Mishaal Al Gergawi Saeed Al Gergawi John Gerrard Alice Gorman Joana Hadjithomas Mohammad Al Hammadi Hasan Hujairi Christine Sun Kim Glenn D. Lowry Sohrab Mahdavi Sophia Al Maria Noura Al Noman Hans Ulrich Obrist Monira Al Qadiri Ibrahim Hamza Al Qasimi Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi Noah Raford Nada Raza Yasmina Reggad João Ribas eL Seed Ahmed Bin Shabib Rashid Bin Shabib Anna Della Subin Hito Steyerl Murtaza Vali Francesco Vezzoli Andre Vida WTD Liam Young Tirdad Zolghadr

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LIVE SESSIONS THE FUTURE WAS GLOBAL / ART / FORUM What did the future look like in the mid2000s? In the Mid-East? Why did a talks program at a new regional art fair decide to be “global” and a “forum”? Art Dubai’s Director, Antonia Carver, and the Global Art Forum’s Commissioner, Shumon Basar, travel ten years in ten minutes.

Antonia Carver is Director of Art Dubai.

Based in the UAE since 2001, she has written extensively; was an editor and projects director at Bidoun (2004-2010); and on the programming committees for the Dubai and Edinburgh film festivals. @antcarver

THE FUTURE WAS SPACE To commemorate the golden jubilee of the founding of the United Arab Emirates in 2021, the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai will be launching a probe to Mars.

The Red Planet probe named Al Amal (Hope) is the first space program ever launched by an Arab state and marks a milestone in the nation’s history. As part of Global Art Forum 10 held under the theme The Future Was, the team behind the Mars probe discussed live for the first time with Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi the hold ‘space’ has over our imaginations, globally, and the way that space travel is associated with national ambition.

Ibrahim Hamza Al Qasimi leads the education and media outreach programme at the Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre.

Al Qasimi was assigned as Project Manager of Nayif-1, the UAE's first CubeSat mission in 2014. In 2014, he became Head of Strategic Research at MBRSC. @Ialqasimi

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Saeed Al Gergawi is a member of the Emirates Mars Mission’s Strategic Planning Team.

He is also part of the research team at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, which acts as the science and technology consultants for the space centre and the government. Saeed is a columnist and often discusses concepts and ideas of futurology, technology, science and space in his writing. @Saeed_algergawi

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Sarah Amiri is currently the Deputy Project Manager and Science Lead of the Emirates Mars Mission Al Amal (Hope); and she is also the manager of the Space Science Section at the Mohamed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC). In 2015 the World Economic Forum recognised her as one of 50 Young Scientists for her contribution to the development efforts in the fields of Science, Technology and Engineering. @SaraAmiri1

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is a commentator on political, social and economic issues in the Middle East. His columns appear in the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The Independent and the Guardian. Al Qassemi is an MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow and the founder of Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. @SultanAlQassemi

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THE FUTURE WAS A ROUNDABOUT The Flying Saucer Roundabout is one of the most beloved landmarks in Sharjah. The Sharjah Art Foundation is currently engaged in a research project related to this part of the built environment. In this conversation, Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi and Murtaza Vali talked through the memories, nostalgia, heritage, and futuristic design of the Flying Saucer Roundabout in Sharjah.

Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi is President and Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation, is a practicing artist who received her BFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2002), a Diploma in Painting from the Royal Academy of Arts (2005) and an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London (2008). In 2003 she was appointed curator of Sharjah Biennial 6 and has continued as the Biennial’s director since that time. @HoorAlq Murtaza Vali is a critic, curator, editor and Visiting Instructor at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, USA. He most recently curated ‘Geometries of Difference: New Approaches to Ornament and Abstraction’ at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz and ‘Accented’ at the Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah. @murtazavali

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Hasan Hujairi (born 1982) is a composer, sound artist, and researcher who lives and works between Seoul and Manama, Bahrain. His works explore his interest in historiography, maritime cultures, technology, and the dissemination of knowledge. @hujairi

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THE FUTURE WAS UNDERWATER What happens when islanders stop looking out to sea and instead look back in land? What are the cultural effects of a changing coastline? In this audio-visual performance, artist Hasan Hujairi introduced us to fidjeri songs or ‘sea music’. Featuring samples of fidjeri songs, traditionally sung by pearl diving communities in the Gulf, and consisting of an all-male chorus and solo singer with minimal percussion, the performance also featured video archive of early fidjeri performances and the changing coastline of Bahrain. This performance followed a conversation between Hasan Hujairi and Amal Khalaf as they trace the resonances of fidjeri featuring anecdotes of the myth of the origin of the music form, its close links to zaar music, how Concorde effected music production on the island and the effects of land reclamation on Bahraini culture.

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THE FUTURE WAS UNCERTAIN How are technologies of simulation transforming the nature of violence, politics, power and the image in the contemporary world? Artist John Gerrard asked these questions through the complex virtual worlds he creates through a combination of photography, 3-D modeling and gaming software. His painterly images make you feel as if you are standing inside an image and viewing it as a slow pan. Mesmerising and disorienting, in a talk with Amal Khalaf, Gerrard presents his real time portraits of physical locations, harnessing advanced simulation and motion capture technologies to create a temporal collage shifting our understanding of the real and the record, and the representation of our present and future.

John Gerrard is an artist living and working in Dublin, Ireland and Vienna. He is best known for his commitment to large-scale works that take form of real-time computer simulations.

These frequently refer to structures of power and networks of energy that have made possible the expansion of human endeavor in the past century. His recent solo presentations include Solar Reserve, installed at Lincoln Centre, New York, in association with the Public Art Fund in 2014. @jegerrard

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Nada Raza is from Karachi and researches art from South Asia at Tate Modern in London.

Raza was guest curator Abraaj Group Art Prize (2014) and her past lives include Iniva, Green Cardamom, and projects in the UAE and Pakistan. Her curatorial project for the Dhaka Art Summit, February 5-8, 2016, ‘The Missing One’, flirts with the convergence of futurism, sci-fi, dystopia and enchantment via works of art made between 1922 and the present. @Tate

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THE FUTURE WAS ENCHANTED Once upon a time there was a belief in the rational and scientific. During that time, magic, ritual, and religion were pushed aside and the world was thought to be secular. Little did we know that in that rational secular space, there was a secret garden where enchantment and wonder continued to grow and flourish.

Imagination fueled these spaces and art, poetry, film, and fiction grew out as alternative ways to understand ourselves and the world around us. Those ways also became ways to map alienation and articulate dystopia, making enchantment subversive.

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THE FUTURE WAS ZZZZZZZZ A short talk on a long repose. Theologians, activists and poets have told of people who sleep for 300 years and then awaken into a transformed world, as a way to critique the present and imagine the future. From 6th century Syriac eschatology to medieval Islamic futurisms, socialist sci-fi to the 1930s Egyptian theatre, it seems the quickest way to get to the future is to sleep. But will you like it when you get there?

Anna Della Subin is an essayist and a contributing editor at Bidoun. Her work has appeared in the London Review of Books, The New York Times, The White Review, Harper’s, and Tank, among other places. Her e-book Not Dead But Sleeping was published

by Triple Canopy in January 2016. @annadella THE FUTURE WAS SPACE IS THE PLACE Musician and composer André Vida on Afrofuturist space-traveler Sun Ra via the vibrations, thoughts and music of the 22nd century as made humanly audible today: what Sun Ra Arkestra leader Marshall Allen refers to as, "Doing skilfully wrong... the key to all spiritual things."

André Vida is a composer, lyricist and saxophonist based in Berlin. Vida collaborated with Anri Sala in the making of To Each His Own In Bridges which premiered at The Havana Biennial and Frieze Sculpture Garden in 2015. His saxophonic work includes collaborations with Anthony Braxton, Elton John, Cecil Taylor and many others.

Hans Ulrich Obrist (b. 1968, Zurich, Switzerland) is Co-Director of the Serpentine Galleries, London. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show World Soup (The Kitchen Show) in 1991, he has curated more than 250 shows. @HUObrist

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Germano Celant is the Artistic and Scientific Superintendent at Fondazione Prada in Milan. Celant is the author of more than one hundred publications, including both books and catalogues. He has curated hundreds of exhibitions in the most prominent international museums and institutions worldwide. He has been a contributing editor of ArtForum since 1977, and a contributing editor of Interview since 1991.

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THE FUTURE WAS THE PAST Museums have always been programmed to protect the past, but do they also guard the future? Germano Celant and Francesco Vezzoli talk to Hans Ulrich Obrist and Shumon Basar about intrepid interpretations of art history, the anti-nostalgia imperative and ways of protesting against forgetting.

Francesco Vezzoli Francesco Vezzoli is one of the most successful Italian contemporary artists in the world today. His works have been selected for the Venice Biennale on four separate occasions; the Whitney Biennial and PERFORMA. He had solo shows, among others, at The New Museum, Guggenheim, MoMA PS1, Tate Modern, Fondazione Prada, MOCA, Los Angeles; and Qatar Museum of Art, Doha.

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THE FUTURE WAS THE MARKET A 'contingent claim' is another term for a financial derivative with a payout dependent on the realization of some future contingent event. In turn, the future prices of these contingent claims become new future events on which further contingent claims are written. When ‘The Market’ is defined as this endless material chain, argues Elie Ayache, time drops out of the equation and the future, literally, is no longer ahead.

Elie Ayache is a former option market-maker on MATIF (1987-1990) and LIFFE (1990-1995).

He is the co-founder and currently the CEO of ITO 33, a derivatives technology company. He is the author of The Blank Swan (Wiley 2010) and The Medium of Contingency (Palgrave 2015).

THE FUTURE WAS THE FUTURE The word ‘future’ appears sometime in the 15th century. At a point in the 20th century, the future was definitely going to be better for us all. Then it got much, much worse, and arguably, today, it’s just the stuff around us– indistinguishable from the present. Hito Steyerl tells Shumon Basar about the cultural and political dreams of the future that failed us, and those that might continue to fuel us into whatever happens to happen next.

Hito Steyerl is a German filmmaker, writer and artist. Her contemporary work, which includes films, essays and lectures, explore issues of media technology and globalisation with a focus on the proliferation of image migration and image politics. Her latest solo

Sohrab Mahdavi is a writer and translator.

Since 2000s, when he edited a web magazine, tehranavenue.com, he has been working by and at large with visual artists. He is currently dedicating most of his time to Nafas, an NGO focusing on the environment which is growing out of the hopeless situation that a Tehrani is facing in a city drugged by smog and mugged by wealth.

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THE FUTURE WAS OVERCAST Unable to come to terms with the Tehran she found herself in, artist Jinoos Taghizadeh redrew her landscape on paper. She whacked the high-rise in front of her window for a better view of the mountains. She dwarfed the buildings that towered over the statue in the middle of the square. To imagine a future in this instance is to live in the irreality of a now. The Tehran of concrete, pavement, and metal has surpassed the Tehran of the artist by leaps and bounds. Alas, reality is fluid. But also, perhaps, such a relief, reality is fluid.

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exhibitions include Bank, Shanghai; KOW Gallery, Berlin; Artists Space, New York; ICA, London; and the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015. @HitoSteyerl

Tirdad Zolghadr is a curator and writer. His curatorial work includes a number of discreet durational projects and several biennial settings including the upcoming 5th Riwaq Biennale in Palestine. In a teaching capacity Zolghadr is affiliated with the Dutch Art Institute and the International Academy of Art in Ramallah, among other institutions. The working title of his third novel is Headbanger.

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THE FUTURE WAS COLLECTIVE The past we know is simply what someone imagined, the stories that the humans of that time decided to tell. The future is a mass of unwritten stories. Yes there are reasons to feel afraid; there is trauma from a history thick with imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism. Adrienne Maree Brown discusses how rather than letting that silence us, how do we cultivate the capacity to create? How can we use collaborative ideation to carve out space for futures that are collective, resilient, compelling, and beautiful? How do we use science fiction to develop a future we long for?

Adrienne Maree Brown is the Co-editor of Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements. She is a writer, social justice facilitator, healer, doula and pleasure activist living in Detroit. @adriennemaree

THE FUTURE WAS TWO SEMI CIRCLES (AWAY FROM THE FACE) How do you sign the concept of the Future? Christine Sun Kim presents work developed in relation to the different shades of the sound and meaning of the future, breaking down rigid definitions by piecing together a tangle of overlapping languages and systems, including American Sign Language (ASL), which is similar to sound in its intrinsic spatiality. Kim questions whether futures have personalities; or can futures get further away, altered or moved by the space that we give them?

Christine Sun Kim uses the medium of sound through technology, performance, and drawing

João Ribas is Senior Curator and Deputy Director of the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto. He was previously Curator of the MIT List Visual Arts Center and of The Drawing Center, New York. Ribas is the winner of four consecutive AICA Exhibition Awards (2008–11) and of an Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award (2010). His recent publication, In the Holocene, is published by Sternberg Press, 2015. @serralves_twit

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THE FUTURE WAS CLOUD Since the second half of the 20th century, we have lived under the shadow of two clouds: the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb, and the ‘cloud’ of distributed information networks.

João Ribas, curator of the Museu Serralves exhibition Under the Clouds, explores how the central metaphor of Cold War era paranoia become the utopian metaphor of today. What are the effects of the Cloud on life and work, leisure and love; and on images, bodies, and minds?

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to investigate her relationship with sound and spoken languages. Solo shows have been held at: Sound Live Tokyo, Tokyo; Carroll/Fletcher, London; and White Space, Beijing; while other elected exhibitions and performances include nyMusikk, Oslo; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Kim was awarded TED and MIT Media Lab Fellowships. @chrisunkim

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THE FUTURE WAS DESERT Lauren Beukes and Sophia Al Maria talk to Shumon Basar about why the deep past of the desert is also the perennial projection of literary and cinematic futures, concluding a conversational time-travelling journey through Oman and Australia, Namibia and South Africa, Tatooine, Abu Dhabi and Arrakis.

Lauren Beukes is an award-winning South African journalist and novelist who also writes screenplays, TV shows and comics. Her novels, including Zoo City, Broken Monsters and The Shining Girls have been translated into 26 languages. @laurenbeukes Sophia Al-Maria is an artist and writer.

In 2015 she was a fellow at the Sundance Screenwriting Lab and her book The Girl Who Fell to Earth was published in Arabic translation. She is currently working on her first solo show in North America for the Whitney Museum, which will be curated by Christopher Lew. @SophiaAlMaria

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Mohammad Al Hammadi is a writer whose work encompasses science fiction, drama and paranormal crime subjects. His published works include The Last Day, Professor Mcaydey’s Notes, Bongani the Healer and A Murder at the Capital’s Suburbs. Al Hammadi was the recipient of the first place prize of the Emirates Novel Award 2014-2015. His most recent work The Search for the Sun’s Kingdom competed in the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel.

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THE FUTURE WAS SCI-FI Our imaginations and dreams are steeped in our language, geography and history.

Each of these categories are most unstable and yet, expansive in our angst-ridden teen years. In this panel discussion led by Uzma Z. Rizvi, young adult sci-fi authors Noura Al Noman and Mohammad Al Hammadi, who have excelled at giving voice to the next generation, will discuss the ways in which writing for Emirati youth have shaped their own understandings of global politics, and how a new imagining of here might take shape and happen.

Noura Al Noman was born in Sharjah and began writing at 45 years of age. She wrote the Award winning “Ajwan”, one of a handful of science fictions novels in the Arab world.

Book two, “Mandaan” was launched in January 2014, and she is working on the third book in the series.

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PERCEPTION Society has a tendency to judge upon their own paradigm, creating misconceptions that divide communities. Misunderstandings escalate and lead to social segregation and ultimately, conflicts. In a new scope of work, eL Seed explores the topic of ‘perception’ in conversation with Glenn D. Lowry by questioning the level of judgment and misconception society can unconsciously have upon a community based on their differences.

Glenn D. Lowry became the sixth director of The Museum of Modern Art in 1995. A strong advocate of contemporary art, Lowry leads a staff of 750 and directs an active program of exhibitions, acquisitions, and publications. His publications include: Contemporary Art and Islamic Culture (2009); and The Museum of Modern Art in This Century (2009). eL Seed is an artist whose work incorporates elements of graffiti and traditional Arabic calligraphy. His art has been shown in exhibitions in Paris, Berlin, São Paulo, Chicago, Dubai, and on the walls of many cities including Paris, Melbourne, London, and New York. eL Seed is a recent TED fellow, and he was also the first artist from the Arab world to collaborate on a product for Louis Vuitton. @elseedart

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Ahmed Bin Shabib and Rashid Bin Shabib are both urbanists and the founders of Cultural Engineering – an institution that has tasked itself over the last 10 years with advancing the urban identity of the contemporary Gulf culture in Dubai. Cultural Engineering was nominated for the Agha Khan awards for architecture in 2010. Both Ahmed & Rashid hold degrees from the University of Oxford in Urbanism. @AhmedbinShabib @rashidshabib

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THE FUTURE WAS DUBAI In 1972, George Candilis, a collaborator of Le Corbusier, created a masterplan for Dubai, a year after the formation of the UAE. How much did proposals such as ‘Dubai Tower’ and the Deira corniche follow Le Corbusier’s maxim, that “The materials of city planning are: sky, space, trees, steel and cement; in that order and that hierarchy?” From the modernist ideals of John Harris to the work of Greek architect Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis, who also planned the cities of Detroit and Islamabad, Ahmed and Rashid Bin Shabib present a visual history of the implied, unrealised and jettisoned ambitions of Dubai’s masterplans.

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THE FUTURE WAS SMART Join speculative architect Liam Young and an all-seeing smart city operating system as they take a tour in a driverless taxi through a network of software systems, autonomous infrastructures, ghost architectures, anomalies, and glitches, searching for the wilds beyond the machine. This performance is an audiovisual expedition to a city found somewhere between the present and the predicted, the real and the imagined, stitched together from fragments of real landscapes and designed urban fictions Liam Young is an architect who operates in the spaces between design, fiction and futures.

He is founder of the think tank Tomorrows Thoughts Today, a group who explore the possibilities of fantastic, speculative and imaginary urbanisms and co runs the ‘Unknown Fields Division’, a nomadic studio that travels on expeditions behind the scenes of the modern city. @liam_young

THE FUTURE WAS SPACE It was 1957 when Sputnik 1 was launched by the Soviet Union and after 3 months in orbit, the satellite fell back to earth. It was, however, quickly followed by Vangaurd 1 in 1958, which was launched by the US, and which continues to be the oldest material in space. There is a history with material traces that remain as space junk in the universe, floating, orbiting, and transforming the ways in which we see the Milky Way. Space is a cultural landscape within which the many relationships between orbital debris, terrestrial launch sites and politics can be traced and understood. What

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does an archaeology of space even look like?

In this talk, @drspacejunk will move us between the stars and think through the detritus of earthly celestial politics by way of satellite poetics.

Alice Gorman is a space archaeologist who studies the human material record in Earth’s orbit, and throughout the solar system. She is a member of the Executive Council of the Space Industry Association of Australia. Her work has twice been selected for The Best Australian Science Writing anthology. She tweets as @drspacejunk and blogs at Space Age Archaeology.

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THE FUTURE WAS THE FUTURE DICHROIC Is there a way to reconcile pre- and post-oil histories in the Gulf? The “petroleum interval” we are currently living through may or may not end soon, which poses the burning question of how culture will develop in the region once oil relegates itself into distant heritage.

In this performance entitled The Color of Polycarbonates, Monira Al Qadiri mythologizes oil through its color, form, machinations and character, by linking it to a culture that preceded it, and imagining a culture that succeeds it.

Monira Al Qadiri is a Kuwaiti visual artist born in Senegal, educated in Japan, and now based in Amsterdam. Her work tackles questions about gender identity, the materiality of oil, and the receding aesthetics of sadness in the Middle-East region. She is also a founding member of the artist collective GCC. @moniraism

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POSTCARDS FROM THE FUTURE ‘Postcards from the Future’ are a series of personal speculations that punctuate the Forum’s programme. They're flashbacks to past moments when the future seemed specifically directed a certain way, only to be replaced by other unforeseen outcomes. These short contributions eschew conclusions, instead, they stimulate the imagination.'

Mishaal Al Gergawi is a writer, and director of the Delma Institute. He is also the co-founder of Cinema Akil. He lives between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. @algergawi Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige are lebanese filmmakers and artists, producing cinematic and visual artwork that intertwine.

They have directed multia warded documentaries and fiction films such as Khiam 2000-2007, A Perfect Day, I Want to See or The Lebanese Rocket Society, Their latest art project focusses on Internet Scams.

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is a commentator on political, social and economic issues in the Middle East. His columns appear in Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The Independent and the Guardian. Al Qassemi is an MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow and the founder of Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. @SultanAlQassemi Noah Raford is the COO of the Dubai Museum of the Future and an advisor on futures, foresight, and innovation at the UAE Prime Minister’s Office. In addition to developing the research agenda and creative direction for the Museum, his team also identifies emerging

Yasmina Reggad is an independent curator and writer based between London and Athens.

She holds an MA in Middle Ages History from the Sorbonne University and is presently Programme Curator at aria (artist residency in algiers). She is the curator of Art Dubai Projects Commissions and A.i.R Dubai 2016. @YasReggad

Global Art Forum

opportunities, develops strategic partnerships, and prototypes future initiatives. He is also a techno DJ. @nraford

COMMISIONED PROJECTS Global Art Forum Programme

THE FUTURE WAS A COMPUTER GENERATED IMAGE If you drove down Dubai’s arterial highway, Sheikh Zayed Road, in 2006, you’d see the largest number of continuously running adjacent billboards in the world. Each one promised a brilliant, bright future under brilliant, bright skies. Hoards of hijabi and hipster inhabitants in jaw-locked joy.

Photoshop Utopias of the better beyond. WTD collate the most iconic and most telling of these real estate image manifestoes.

WTD is an independent publication that uses narratives, conversations and visual essays to reflect on the built environment of the present-day Middle East. These temporary parameters represent an attempt to initiate a discourse that highlights architecture, urban thought processes and their relationship to the societies in which they are created. Promoting wishful thinking and cynical critique since 2012. @WTDMag

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PARTNERS

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The Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) was launched on March 8, 2008 by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President & Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai. Dubai Culture plays a critical part in achieving the vision of the Dubai Strategic Plan 2021 of establishing the city as vibrant, global Arabian metropolis that shapes culture and arts in the region and the world.

The organisation has announced several initiatives that strengthen the historic and modern cultural fabric of Dubai. These include: The Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Patrons of the Arts Awards: The first of its kind initiative in the Arab world honouring individuals and organisations who have made financial or in kind contributions through sustained support to visual arts, performing arts, literature and film in the region; Dubai Art Season: The city’s premier umbrella arts initiatives which encompasses of Art Week (Art Dubai, Design Days Dubai, and SIKKA Art Fair), Middle East Film & Comic Con, to highlight the Emirate’s growing creative landscape within the international circuit; SIKKA Art Fair: An annual art fair aimed at promoting Emirati and local artists in the UAE; and Dubai Festival for Youth Theatre: An annual festival that celebrates and fosters the art of theatre in the UAE. www. dubaiculture.gov.ae

Global Art Forum Programme

d3 is the newest of TECOM Group’s communities, with 11 buildings making up the core of the site already delivered and being handed over to tenants. To support its many creative partners, d3 offers individuals and businesses the choice of operating either as a free zone entity or as an on-shore business, each with its own merits.

By 2018, d3 will feature a one million square foot Creative Community, which will act as the site’s cultural epicentre, inspiring emerging designers and artists, and attracting tourists to the area. By 2019, d3 will also boast a bustling Waterfront, a 1.8km esplanade running alongside the Dubai Creek, with international and design-led hotels, boutique retail concept stores and an outdoor events space, as well as a host of hospitality and leisure facilities.

All of these various elements have been

Partners

Dubai Design District, better known as d3, is a home for the region’s growing community of creative thinkers. It plays a key element in Dubai’s vision to transform into an innovationled economy, and it aims to engage, inspire and enable emerging talent, as well as providing a platform to showcase Arab creativity to a larger, global audience.

As a dedicated creative destination, d3 answers a growing need for the regional design industry, ensuring that this important sector is able to develop and thrive. It provides businesses, entrepreneurs and creatives from across the design value chain with an ideally located, purpose built and sustainable ecosystem, which leverages technology to integrate ‘smart’ solutions throughout the development.

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carefully designed to ensure that the creative thinkers using and visiting d3 every day have an energised and culture rich environment where they can coexist.

Founded in 1946, the Institute of Contemporary Arts is a membership institute that promotes and encourages an understanding of radical art and culture.

Through a vibrant programme of exhibitions, films, talks and events, the ICA examines recent impulses in artistic production while stimulating debate surrounding the arts. With its critically acclaimed exhibition and film programme, as well as its Off-Site and Touring strands, the ICA continues to engage new generations of artists and audiences alike.

For more information, please visit: britishcouncil.ae

Global Art Forum Programme

Our 7000 staff in over 100 countries work with thousands of professionals and policy makers and millions of young people every year through English, arts, education and society programmes. We have been in the Gulf for 60 years and in the UAE our arts work stretches across visual arts, literature, theatre, architecture, design, fashion and the creative economy.We create networks that foster collaboration and share knowledge for the long term benefit of individuals and communities where we work.

Partners

The British Council creates international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and builds trust between them worldwide. We are a Royal Charter charity, established as the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations.

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