Hind Bin Demaithan, From Cali, With Love 

Hind Bin Demaithan’s video blog reflected her practice at the time and the experience of being away from her hometown of Dubai. Demaithan was made present at the fair through cyber digital avatars, 3D and Second Life performances where the viewer was able to enact both the roles of director and spectator. The videos she posted were peepholes, allowing viewers to see her practice on a weekly basis.

Mary Evans, Fayre

A series of site-specific friezes situated in the golden arches of the Joharah foyer at Art Dubai, the word Fayre is an archaic English spelling of fair, meaning an exhibition or market, and also implies a rustic beauty. The decorative appearance and temporary paper material of Fayre equated it with a contemporary art fair as both an architectural statement that is aesthetically pleasing to look at and a passing, transitory event. Mary Evans’s project is kindly supported by the British Council.

Ehsan Ul Haq, History Lessons

History Lessons was a series of sculptures which depicted a herd of life-sized donkeys, referencing terracotta warriors from the Qin dynasty. These sculptures appeared to be of their surroundings, blending in with the fair’s site in a subtle display of humour. The work comments on ideas of force and control, and dwells on the mindless activity of the group as it zealously follows power without critique.

Shi Jinsong, The Inner Garden

Inspired by the architecture of gardens and their underpinning philosophies, Shi Jinsong’s project revolved around the idea of creating a space that brought together elements of both public and private life. Collecting found objects from around the UAE, with particular attention to old and worn glassware, and the trunks of cut-down ghaf trees, Jinsong constructed a poetic landscape of materials that are usually discarded and disregarded. His project aimed to explore a new cultural cartography that reconsiders the relationships between the ‘East and the East’. Jinsong’s project was kindly supported by Capsule Arts and Goumbook.

Mohammed Kazem, Window 2013-2011

Window 2013 – 2011 included over one hundred ethereal drawings, created over the past few years and up until Art Dubai itself; each drawing honed in on a particular detail of the city and its development. Fascinated by the archiving of seemingly unimportant objects, Mohammed Kazem uses various tools such as GPS as a tool for drawing, mapping, and recording. These strategies evoke multiple narratives and dimensions of meaning.

Farideh Lashai, Between the Motion / and the Act / Falls the Shadow

A video installation which comprised a series of epigrammatic film shots describing popular vernacular culture of cafes, the images symbolized a nightlife ubiquitous in the Iran of the 1950-1970s and created an environment wherein the viewer assimilated with the cafe audience in the manner of a virtual cabaret. Images were culled from ‘Film Farsi’ commercial cinema of the period.

Basim Magdy, Investigating the Color Spectrum of a Post-Apocalyptic Future Landscape

Investigating the Color Spectrum of a Post-Apocalyptic Future Landscape was a slide-projected sequence of images photographed on the arid, volcanic island of Lanzarote. The work proposed the phantom record of a future memory. These slides were then subtly manipulated by exposing different film stocks to a variety of household chemicals as a nostalgic gesture towards dead media.

Joe Namy, Transfiguration

Joe Namy spent part of his three-month residency in Dubai researching traditional song and dance, once used for ritual healing, and unique to the UAE. Namy’s performance, Transfiguration, drew upon the parallels between these ritual dances and their rhythmic connections to contemporary electronic music, and was presented as a multi-media installation including a live performance at Art Dubai.

Yudi Noor, Forgotten in Quantum

Yudi Noor’s project was a stage-like form that referenced the limbo of unobtainable desire induced by the advertising billboards and continual construction common in parts of the city. In his second installation, See You in Al Fahidi Maybe, Noor reinvented the character of a trading entrepreneur, who worked one of the abraa boats in the Madinat Jumeirah waterways.

Ahmet Ögüt, Intern VIP Lounge

Intern VIP Lounge was an exclusive space for all the unpaid interns working at the art fair. Only volunteers, after registering at the Intern VIP Lounge’s information desk, were able to access the lounge – an exclusive space that not only provided a relaxed and entertaining ambience, but also operated as a knowledge exchange space, with a special programme of events, including meetings, presentations and film screenings.

Fatima Al Qadiri, The Official Soundtrack of the Fair

Fatima Al Qadiri drew on the sonic as a medium to explore the notion of “official” conduct at an art fair. By remixing Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, Op.71: No. 2 March, traditionally used on regional state TV as the unofficial soundtrack for the meeting of heads of state, and by commissioning an official Art Dubai business card to document the work, Al Qadiri wished to highlight the context of the art fair as a formative meeting ground for artists and as the official epicenter of art-related business. At pre-determined times, the piece played at the Global Art Forum tent.

MOBILE ART GALLERY

In an effort to take contemporary art to a broader audience, Art Dubai Projects 2013 included Mobile Art Gallery (M.A.G), a nomadic, pop-up gallery that operated from a peripatetic truck. The travelling gallery titled ‘The Nonfictional Fantasy’ showcased contemporary works by UAE-based artists, included Azim Al Ghussein, Shamsa Al Omaira, Rami Farook, Rania Jishi, Karim Mortada, Sharmeen Syed and Sara Al Haddad. M.A.G visited different neighborhoods each day of Art Week.

M.A.G was initiated and curated by the Dubai-based independent curators Isabella Ellaheh Hughes and Angelle Siyang-Le and was supported by Aramex, Al Benaya and HotCold Studio.