DUBAI: UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Compelled by the sheer lack of street photography, this photo-‐series bares the results of a compulsion to search for tidbits of ‘normality’ during daily life in a place that’s often described as a hyper-‐real ‘Arab Disneyland’. Dubai: a living juxtaposition of cultureless capital of consumption versus Islamic identity within an Emirate state.
Often presumed to be a country and not just a city; sometimes the entire UAE is described as ‘Dubai’. Dubai is incomparable with other cosmopolitan metropolises due to it’s accelerated construction, which only began two decades ago and is still ongoing; undeniably remarkable but arguably unethical. Prior to my visit, my only insights into the city had been from one or two photographs of ‘Sheik Zayeed Road’ and Dubai Marina illuminated at night. – And Google Map’s worldview of my residence for two weeks; an apartment on the trunk of The Palm Jumeirah.
A self proclaimed ‘World Wonder’, Palm Jumeirah is in fact the testing ground for the United Arab Emirates' strategy for life after oil: big-‐scale tourism. Once complete, there will be homes and hotel rooms for 65,000 people. Two even bigger man-‐made islands are under way along the coast: a replica of an existing island called ‘The World’ and another called ‘The Universe’.
The Palm’s apartment blocks resemble gigantic sandcastles, quite similar to ‘Merfolk Kingdom’ in Walt Disney’s animated film ‘The Little Mermaid’ (1989)
HAPPY HALLOW-‐EID! My visit fell on the dates coming up to Eid and Hallowe’en celebrations. This photograph encapsulates the bizarre American vs. Middle Eastern cultural conflicts during an otherwise mundane trip to the local, French, supersized hypermarket. The weekly shop was a military operation spanning five hours due to its tremendous size. Fresh fruit and vegetables had been imported from all corners of the globe, similar to Dubai’s populates. All of these factors make gigantic contributions to Dubai’s astronomical carbon emissions.
Infact, it’s not just the contents of the supermarkets and 83% of Dubai’s inhabitants; even the metro stations are all made from imported materials! The only constant in this region is the Islamic religious identity, which holds the very basis of my fascination. There are as many malls in Dubai as there are quotes in the Qur’an condemning materialism.
During my journey to Mall of the Emirates, I was utterly entrenched in the novelties of my surroundings as I sped excitedly down the trunk of the Palm Jumeirah in an air-‐conditioned taxi. Suddenly I caught a glimpse of the metallic sheen on the HI-‐VIS jackets of a bus load of (predominantly South Asian) migrant workers headed to gated labour camps, as they sped by instantaneously in the scorching midday sun. -‐What’s hauntingly surreal is that if you stick to main roads, which, as a tourist or ex-‐patriot is very easily done, you could never see any evidence of the migrant workers. And when you do spot the odd dozen wearing dark blue boiler suits in the blistering heat, you’d never envisage there being tens of thousands more just out of sight.
It’s not hard to become complacent, underwhelmed even, by Dubai’s extroversion and extravagance after being submerged in it. I found myself shrugging at skyscrapers and yawning at yachts after just one week. Realising this led me to ponder the possibility of class anxieties among expats. Relocating to Dubai can be seen as similar to moving to a newly built housing estate in the U.K. in the sense that everyone that’s here has chosen to be here. What’s been achieved in the past twenty or so years, and is still ongoing, is inevitably a little alienating, even more so to locals than to expats and tourists. I asked locals what they thought of Dubai’s rapid expansion:
“Abu Dhabi’s highways and road plans are a lot better thought out than Dubai’s -‐ it’s almost funny; it’s as if Abu Dhabi’s leaders waited for Dubai to make all the mistakes and then built their roads better” –Antony (lives in Dubai, German and Japanese heritage.)
It’s true! Abu Dhabi’s so much easier to navigate, you could walk about without getting lost because the city centre is set out in blocks, like New York or Berlin, -‐not that you would ever walk because it’s so hot and taxi fare is ridiculously cheap due to oil being the number one export.
My last Google Image search of ‘Dubai Skyline’ generated approximately 7,220,000 results -‐but nothing can quite prepare you for the abnormality of gliding through Dubai’s business district via Metro, especially between metro stops ‘Dubai Internet City’, ‘Business Bay’ and ‘Financial Centre’ in a place which was just desert a couple of decades ago. It still seems unreal to me now. The flatness of the midday sun and sheer density of the mass of urban sprawl means there was no room for shadows. Everything looked two dimensional, too new and too perfect. The closest comparison I can come to describe Dubai’s skyline is the ‘Emerald City’ in Metro-‐Goldwyn-‐Mayer’s 1939 film ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ –This dream like vision could have something to do with the dusty haze that engulfs skyscrapers during infrequent but severe sandstorms. HERITAGE VILLAGE More a spectacle than a tourist attraction: two men and a camel sit on a patch of sand yards away from a busy highway just outside the entrance to the village, set on the shores of Dubai Creek.
A man invites passers by to drink Arabic coffee with him:
I was chauffeured by this man to a desolate ‘Youth Club’; two men watching television encased by a polythene shield, (assumedly to allow for more efficient air-‐conditioning):
Adjacent to ‘Heritage Village’ is the Diving Club Gift Shop. This site symbolizes the last remnants of Old Dubai, which was sustained solely by fishing and pearl diving until 1926.
A BRIEF HISTORY The global recession (2008-‐ present) was nothing compared to Dubai’s Great Depression in 1929, which resulted in Sheik Saeed looking for an alternative source of income and Dubai becoming one of the leading re-‐export ports in the world. -‐How ironic in that following the invention of artificial pearls in 1926 and the inevitable collapse in the international pearl market; Dubai has gone from strength to strength specializing in all things artificial!
Upon inspecting an architectural model showcased in Dubai’s Imax Cinema, I was fascinated yet perplexed by the tiny kandora and abaya clad figurines.
Government billboard advertisements were a little more true-‐to-‐life; featuring Dubai’s Muslim and non-‐Muslim exemplary citizens.
AN INTRODUCTION TO ABU DHABI
All anyone seems to do recreationally in Abu Dhabi is drive! Whilst cruising around hearing that a friend of a friend’s Father ‘owns Texaco’ becomes just as ordinary as bumping into the Ambassador of Cuba’s daughter, on a golf buggy ride -‐from a five star club-‐ back to one of our host’s cars.
Youngsters sport Vendetta masks at Abu Dhabi’s corniche – a sociopolitical statement? “No, they don’t know what it means. They just wear it ‘cause they think it’s cool” –Mustafa (considers himself to be a ‘global citizen’; is Somalia and lives in Abu Dhabi)
Sheik Mohammed’s face emblazoned in diamanté’s on the rear widow of a luxurious car.
The writing on the window translates as ‘The objects on the mirror looks smaller and further than it is in reality’-‐ an unintentional yet ironic nod towards things not being quite as they seem.
Despite having already lathered itself in luxury, showered itself in superlative, futuristic architecture, Dubai is dead set on maintaining its repertoire as a first class business district and tourist fascinator. This defiant, to the point of childish, rivalry, between Sheikhs across the United Arab Emirate states -‐to be bigger and better than the rest of the world dictates that Dubai still is, and probably always will be, ‘Under Construction’.