A.R.M. Holding Children's Programme: Sahil Naik

The A.R.M. Holding Children’s Programme, now in its fourth year, is the largest such cultural education programme in the UAE. Since 2021, the A.R.M. Holding Children’s Programme has been bringing together artists and designers to closely collaborate with local schools through bespoke workshops. The programme provides UAE-based school children with opportunities to grow and develop their interest and understanding of the arts by interacting with a roster of international artists and familiarising them with a wide range of art and design practices.

The selected artist for the 2024 programme is Sahil Naik, whose sculptural, architectural and arts education practice will take participants on a journey through creation using dioramas, memory and the built environment as sources of inspiration. Titled ‘Worlds in a Box’ and centring on themes of ecology and nature, these workshops will invite children to explore the central question: “How do younger generations imagine future cities, and what they will comprise?”

There will also be a purpose-built Creative Play Area for Art Dubai 2024, offering children an opportunity to participate in creative play led by trained care workers while parents visit the fair. Children will be able to engage with materials relating to the past three editions of the A.R.M. Holding Children’s Programme: the Noom Project, the Art of Recycle and the Flag Project.

Following its launch at Art Dubai, the A.RM. Holding Children’s Programme will expand over 100 schools across all seven Emirates, reaching at least 15,000 students. This will be the largest edition of the programme to date and reach private, government and special needs schools around the UAE.

A.R.M. Holding is a private investment firm and a multi-focused economic enabler investing in partnerships that reinforce Dubai’s position as the global capital of culture and innovation. It collaborates to that end with Art Dubai on several initiatives that foster young talent and creativity in the emirate.

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ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sahil Naik’s (b. 1991) practice examines the modalities of evidence and truth through architecture, minor and casual histories, mythology, forensics and the internet. His current project Monuments, Mausoleums, Memorials, Modernism studies the violence of the nation-building project with a focus on South Asia and the Non-aligned world.

His works were included in the 5th editions of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale curated by Shubigi Rao and the Art Encounters Biennale, Timișoara curated by Adrian Notz. He has exhibited with TBA 21 on st_age; and at Foundation Elpis, Milan; Vitrine in Basel; Delfina Foundation and Asia House in London; Bridget Donahue as a part of Condo, New York; Beirut Art Center, Lebanon; MMAG Foundation, Amman; Khoj International Artists’ Association and the Serendipity Arts Festival, India; and the Aomori Contemporary Art Center, Aomori, Japan and with HH Art Spaces in Goa. He was also a recipient of Five Million Incidents, instituted by Goethe Institut New Delhi with RAQS Media Collective. His solo presentations include All Is Water And To Water We Must Return (2021), Monuments, Mausoleums, Memorials, Modernism (2020) and Ground Zero (2017) at Experimenter, Kolkata.

He was the recipient of the inaugural Warehouse 421 Artistic Research Grant and of the Prameya Art Foundation Publishing Grant for South Asia with VASL in Pakistan, Britto Arts Trust in Bangladesh and Theertha in Sri Lanka; and the Arts (Productions) grant instituted by the India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore.

The artist lives and works in Goa, India.