PROINTERVIEW
TAKING ART SERIOUSLY
Jameel Arts Centre has been making waves in the art community for featuring different art forms, including film. Head of Exhibitions Nora Razian tells Sarah Nathan about the centre and elaborates on the film segment at the facility
How is Jameel Arts Centre different from other galleries in the way you integrate different art forms? Jameel Arts Centre is essentially Dubai’s contemporary art museum. We have a collection that we show within our exhibitions’ programme; the robust film programme; the culture park where we commission works; festivals and events; and an arts library. This is the first open-access library in the Gulf that looks at art history theory, social theory and architecture, and includes a large holding of artists’ books, journals and a special collection of archival material. That’s the Jameel Arts Centre in a nutshell, and it’s part of a bigger umbrella organisation called Art Jameel. We have a second site that we recently opened in Jeddah as well, which has an arts centre. It’s the first independent arthouse cinema and will be opening very soon.
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What does the integration of film bring to an exhibition? We have a film programme, and when I say that I’m talking about artist films – artists who work within the moving image. Sometimes these are documentaries, but they can also be quite experimental. This is a large way that many artists are choosing to work these days, and have been for a while. I would say it’s due to the region historically lacking access to materials and because it’s easier to circulate film works. There are also lots of works questioning historical and documentary forms that have come out of the region, which have been quite interesting. So for us, artist film productions are important to showcase and introduce to audiences. We have a dedicated film gallery where we have month-long features of one artist, or we sometimes do thematic programmes that are related to exhibitions or other areas of interest
