The annual A.R.M. Holding Children’s Programme, now in its 6th year, presents artist-led workshops as part of the fair’s public programme, encouraging curiosity, collaboration and environmental awareness.
For 2025, the programme ‘Future of Water’ led by artists Peju Alatise Alia Hussain Lootah invited children to explore the vital role water plays in their lives, and how our relationship with this essential resource continues to evolve.
The creative workshops encouraged children to express their ideas through innovative artistic processes, using plexiglass sheets as a base on which children painted or collaged their vision of water’s future. This dynamic process lets them witness how water itself becomes a living part of the piece, echoing its changing nature and its role in shaping our lives.
Alia Hussain Lootah (b. Dubai, 1987) is an Emirati artist whose current work explores the interpersonal relationship between mother and child in today’s modern world, addressing themes of uncertainty rooted in both external and internal unrest.
Alia held a solo presentation at Art Dubai 2024 and Abu Dhabi Art 2022, Aisha Alabbar Gallery. She has also participated in numerous exhibitions, including Dubai Calligraphy Biennale (2023); The Quest at Aisha Alabbar Gallery (2022) and the Sikka Art Fair (2011, 2012, and 2013). Further exhibitions include Mawtini and Metamorphosis, Tashkeel (2013) and 40 Poems from the Desert, The Ara Gallery (2011). A graduate of the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artist Fellowship Program (SEAF) in 2014, her thesis explored motherhood through different forms of sculptures. In 2017, Alia co-founded the Medaf Studio in Dubai, an art centre dedicated to fostering self-expression and creativity in children and adults.
Peju Alatise (b. Lagos, 1975) lives and works between Lagos, Nigeria and Glasgow, UK. She is an interdisciplinary artist, architect and author of two novels. Alatise began her professional career as an architect, studying at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Nigeria, while managing a private art studio. She produces works across a variety of mediums, techniques and materials, including paintings, film, installations and sculptures.
Alatise’s work has been exhibited in New York, Florence, Morocco, and London. At the 2017 Venice Biennale, her striking life-sized installation Flying Girls was featured in the Nigeria Pavilion. Among her many accolades are a fellowship from the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and the FNB Art Prize in Johannesburg. Alatise’s evolving subject matter explores broader themes of universal consciousness and change. She is also the founder of Alter Native Artists Initiative (ANAI), a nonprofit artist incubator and collective dedicated to the development of visual arts in Nigeria.
