April 2025

“Get up, get out, spring is everywhere” Spring Fever, Elvis Presley (1965)

Ramadan took up all of March, and I thought I’d be able to complete a few pending projects. Instead, I found myself struggling to focus, and now have an even longer to do list.

Our eating and sleeping schedule gets disrupted, but also generally speaking, the quiet and slowed down pace of Ramadan in Dubai seems no more. There were a lot of distractions, and in hindsight, I wish I went offline last month for a digital detox.

Additionally, what is meant to be a quiet and reflective month, to be charitable and to spend time with family and loved ones, has turned into a busy social calendar in the past couple of years. Not that I was participating, but there was a notable increase of events at art venues, becoming spaces of consumption and entertainment with the goal of increased footfall. Just like shopping malls. I could only describe it as … new phrase incoming… a “Christmasfication” of Ramadan.

I stepped out a few times last month to visit a few small exhibitions. Two standouts:

I went back to Sharjah Biennial 16 a few more times in the past few weeks. This year’s edition “presents more than 650 works by nearly 200 participants, including more than 200 new commissions.” I’d also like to point out the number of participants includes only a handful of artists from the UAE.

I’ve not seen all the works, and won’t. But out of perhaps the 200+ works I saw, the following project and artists stood out for me.

Sharjah Art Museum:
- Photo Kegham (+ in Majlis Shaikh Mohammed)
- Nasser Al-Yousif (+ in Al Mureijah Art Spaces)
- Mila Turajlić

Bait Al Serkal:
- Pallavi Paul
- Fazal Rizvi
- M'hammed Kilito

Old Dhaid Clinic:
- Wael Shawky

You can see photos of all the works on Universes in Universe’s website who always do a good job at documenting the Sharjah Biennials.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the meaning and objective of a large scale biennial like this, especially when most of the time, I’m the only one when I visit (plus the security guards). Will try to put together some more thoughts about this on the blog soon.

Other things I’ve been thinking about:

The Studio Ghibli AI Generator, an extremely upsetting display of copyright theft and seeing organisations “Ghiblifiying” their images for marketing purposes is nauseating.

Columbia University

The Dubai Chocolate craze.

Where will the next season of The White Lotus be filmed. My jaw dropped during the 3rd episode when we found out a dodgy couple met through a “matchmaking service” in Dubai. Also RIP Chelsea and Rick.

If in Dubai, please join me on Sunday, April 13 at 11.00am at Alliance Française to watch a film I selected from the Institut Français Film Library.

”A scorching love triangle ignites between the iconic Jane Fonda, sultry Lola Albright and Alain Delon in René Clément’s Joy House (Les Félins).

Delon stars as Marc, a dashing young con man on the run from the mob. After seeking refuge in the Riviera villa of the widowed Barbara (Albright) and her curvaceous cousin, Melinda (Fonda), Marc becomes trapped in the passionate snares of both women, who are full of sinister surprises.

A neglected masterpiece from director René Clément, Joy House weaves a wicked web of hidden desires and all-too-human corruptions.” — Kino Lorber

It will include English subtitles. More information here.

Collected Histories: Personal Archives and Documentation is a new project I’m working on with Jasmine Soliman. The aim is to host film screenings, talks and workshops to foster discussions about personal documentation, archiving, communities and belonging.

Our first event will be at on Sunday, May 4 at 421 Arts Campus in Abu Dhabi, broken into the following sessions:

1. Film Screening - Four short films followed by a short discussion:

• Don’t Get Too Comfortable (Shaima Al Tamimi, 2021)

• Where Am I From? (Nouf Aljowaysir, 2022)

• Still Processing (Sophy Romvari, 2020)

• The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing (Theo Panagopoulos, 2024)

2. Workshop - Attendees signing up to stay for the workshop will be required to bring at least one item from their personal archive, it could be family photos, letters, diaries, heirlooms

Complete details can be found on my blog and on 421’s website.

It is official, Robbie Williams is my non-guilty pleasure, and in a way keeping me sane from the never ending bad news and doomscrolling. Wrote all about it here.

Some highlights:

I found out he is working on building a hotel…in Dubai!

He also recently posted UAE related drawings on his Instagram posts.

I’ve made a few tweaks to the blog, the main one is a new section titled FROM THE ARCHIVE that appears at the bottom of the screen. With 15 years worth of blogposts, my aim is to update that section every week or two, to highlight older posts.

A few recent posts:

Dubai’s Original Centre of Everything
“Radisson Blu Hotel Dubai Deira Creek Celebrates 50 Years as Dubai’s Hospitality Pioneer”. The hotel was previously known as the InterContinental Hotel Dubai and I still call it the InterContinental. It opened on March 15, 1975 and was “Dubai’s very first five-star hotel”.

Happy 30th Anniversary to Green Art Gallery + some of my favourite exhibitions from the past decade.

Zarina Muhammad: Imagine a World When Artsits Run Museums
A presentation by The White Pube’s Zarina Muhammad titled Anarchism, Ubers and ghosts: The Book on Being an Artist Under Capitalism, and trying to imagine a world when artists run the museums.

ICP’s Asher Selle on spending less time and energy on data-mongering platforms

Highs and lows from Oscars 2025
One of the highs: Conan O’Brien as the host
One of the lows: Allocating less than 10 seconds to David Lynch during the In Memoriam section. Shameful.

Cinema Roundup + Favourite Films - March

Read:
Guilt by Association - When speech becomes terrorism
by Shilpa India

Exhibitions:
I updated my list of exhibitions to see in Dubai this season, read it here.

Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style at Design Museum, London
Until August 17

Maya Deren. A Cadence of Images at Museu Etnològic i de Cultures del Món, Barcelona
Until September 7

RIP Val Kilmer.