The Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program is held under the patronage of wife of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, Her Highness Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of UAE Gender Balance Council, President of Dubai Women Establishment.
This year‘s programme expanded to include activities for teenagers as well as children (covering ages 5-16), and included workshops and Discovery Tours of the fair, led by both international and UAE-based artists.
The Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program 2014 included the commissioning of Australia-based artist Dylan Martorell, who works in drawing, installation and sound; for Art Dubai, he devised a set of dynamic and innovative workshops (for ages 5-8 and 9-12) that involved young artists creating sounds from drawings and instruments from upcycled materials. Workshops were led by Dylan Martorell and assisted by local artists Reem Falaknaz and Khawla Darwish. The programme also included workshops for UAE-based artists interested in developing their skills in both sound art and children’s art education.
2014 also featured the return of Discovery Tours (for ages 8-12 and 13-16), led by artists, including Athier Moussawi, Rania Jishi and Sara Naim. These tours enable young people to discover all aspects of the fair, with the works brought alive via a series of maps and the story-telling of the guides.
The programme is held under the patronage and guidance of Her Highness Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Women Establishment, Wife of HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs UAE, and forms part of the activity of The Cultural Office.
Dylan Martorell
Dylan Martorell was born in Scotland in 1971, and now lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. Transience, improvisation and collaboration form the basis of his music-based art practice. Housed within the conceptual framework of a musical diaspora, his work is drawn to ways in which music travels through space and is affected by changes in geography, climate, culture and materials, and can become an agent for cross-cultural reciprocation.
Reem Falaknaz
Reem Falaknaz is a photographer and freelance TV producer/director from the UAE. The nature of her job allows her to travel around the Emirates, where she records and collects narratives from the country’s inhabitants. Her work stems from the realisation of a scarcity of modern history documentation. Through video, photography, audio and endless conversations, Falaknaz continues to explore the makeup of her surroundings, while attempting to translate the stories she collects.
Rania Jishi
Contemporary artist Rania Jishi works with various mediums, creating large-scale mixed media paintings and satirical stop-motions. After a short stint in education, Jishi—a graduate from American University in Dubai with a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art—returned to the field of art to produce her own works and explore her interest in translation. A former Campus Art Dubai student, she has also exhibited with the Mobile Art Gallery and SIKKA Art Fair, where she worked as part of the organising team. Jishi is currently involved in Versus Art at Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue Arts District.
Sara Naim
Growing up between Dubai and London, Sara Naim studied photography at the London College of Communication prior to working with New York’s Ryan McGinley. A Syrian visual artist, she currently lives in London where she is pursuing her MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art. Naim has previously exhibited in New York, Malaysia, London, Dubai and Arles, and has been featured in publications Art Forum, Phaidon, Dazed and Confused and The Gulf News. She has recently joined The Third Line Dubai’s roster of artists.
