Art Dubai 2015 and 2016 featured the launch of a two-year partnership with 89plus, the long-term, international, multi-platform research project co-founded by Simon Castets and Hans Ulrich Obrist, investigating the generation of innovators born in or after 1989.
Hans Ulrich Obrist and Simon Castets were joined at Art Dubai by artists and 89plus collaborators Sarah Abu Abdullah and Abdullah Al-Mutairi; they led a series of closed interviews and workshops with creative/cultural protagonists, with the aim of working up ideas and points of discussion that fed into the second year of the programme.
89plus Dubai was the first presentation in the Middle East/South Asia region.
The year 1989 saw the introduction of the World Wide Web and the beginning of the universal availability of the Internet. Positing a relationship between these world-changing events and creative production at large, 89plus introduces the work of some of this generation’s most inspiring protagonists. Workshops, interviews and a presentation at Art Dubai 2015 were geared towards developing a collaborative project – the first in the region – to be presented at Art Dubai 2016.
Part of Art Dubai’s not-for-profit projects programming, 89plus Dubai culminated in a performance-based, collaborative text and voice-based project at Art Dubai 2016. The programme was accompanied by a publication by WTD which includes an essay by Sarah Abu Abdallah and Abdallah Al -Mutairi.
Contributors included:
Rand Abdul Jabbar, Hala Ali, Yogesh Barve, Tara Aldughaither, Riem Hassan, Tulip Hazbar, Sophia Al-Maria, Meitha Al Mazrooei, Amad Mian, Batool Mohammad, Majid Al-Remaihi Majid, Saud Alsanad, Musfira Shaffi, Shaweesh, Mohamed Elshahed, Natasha Stallard, Lina Younes and Agustina Zegers.
89plus Dubai was supported by Dubai Design District. The British Council kindly supported the 2016 edition of 89plus Dubai.
