What is Quoz Arts Fest made of? Artistic vision and creative talent!
A young artist at serious work.
Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer
Quoz Arts Fest 2024 (QAF, Jan. 27 – 28) featured a diverse programme of more than 200 cultural activations. It brought together over 50 creative concepts from across Al Quoz Creative Zone, an integrated ecosystem that meets the requirements of creative talents and entrepreneurs who invest in the creative economy.
This year’s festival - QAF’s eleventh edition - celebrated a decade of success with live music, gallery-based art, contemporary dance, performing arts, food trucks, public art installations and wellness and more.
The festival also included a series of workshops hosted by Alserkal Avenue and the Al Quoz Creative Zone, over two days. Among the dignitaries who paid a visit was Dr. Saeed Mubarak bin Kharbash, CEO of the Arts & Literature Sector at the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture).
His call was part of Dubai Culture’s support for creatives in various artistic and creative sectors, and aligned with its commitment to realising Dubai’s cultural vision of becoming a global centre for culture, an incubator for creativity and a thriving hub for talent.
During his tour of the event (which was held in strategic partnership with Dubai Culture), Bin Kharbash explored a variety of installations and exhibitions. Commenting on their ideas and diverse styles, he praised their ability to express the visions of their creators, while emphasising the significance and the supportive opportunities Dubai Culture provides for talented individuals. He said that “Quoz Arts Fest, with its initiatives, exhibitions, and diverse works, adds a qualitative contribution to the local creative scene, contributing to the cultural movement in the emirate and strengthening the power of cultural and creative industries.”
During the tour, Bin Kharbash met with Dubai Abulhoul, CEO of Fiker Institute, with a view to enhancing the knowledge and cultural partnership between Dubai Culture and the Thought Foundation. An interdisciplinary think tank “combining foreign policy with culture and merging numbers with art”, Fiker Institute facilitates dialogue, tests ideas, debates constructs, and attempts to advance intellectual discourse around them. As a research organisation, its main areas of focus include global governance, foreign policy, neocolonialism, and culture and it offers fellowships and publications. “The world has always had an opinion about the Middle East,” it says. “We believe that it’s time for the Middle East to have an opinion about the world.”
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Bin Kharbash also reviewed the array of artistic works presented at the festival, including the second edition of the The Disappearing Art Show exhibition organised by Gulf Photo Plus, supervised by curator Salem AlSuwaidi. Gulf Photo Plus is a leading photography centre, based in the UAE. It cultivates visual practices through year-round workshops, art programmes, exhibitions, community events, publishing, state-of-the art printing services, and specialised photography resources, including equipment.
During his visit, Bin Kharbash learned about the installation artwork Still from Here by PHI Studio, inspired by the wisdom of nomads and their traditions in navigation, resilience, and survival in challenging environments. He also explored Migrant Minds by the UAE-Based artist Moey, which was previously showcased at the 11th edition of the Sikka Arts and Design Festival. The piece delves into the stories of individuals forced to leave their homelands in search of a better future elsewhere. The artist had decided to celebrate the UAE’s ability to attract people from all over the world who come here with their hopes and dreams of creating a brighter future. Moey is a conceptual artist who has been resident in the Emirates for over a decade and half.
Bin Kharbash visited Courtesy of Carbon 12, which hosted the exhibition Red Flags by Anahita Razmi, exploring the concept of coloured banners used for alerts. Razmi is a visual artist working with installation, moving image, photography, objects, and performance. She often uses her German-Iranian background as a reference, and her practice explores contextual, geographical and ideological shifts – with a focus on shifts between an ‘East’ and a ‘West’. “I am interested in a fluid, transcultural approach to contemporary art and its histories and references,” she says, “and in work that is producing testing grounds for hybrid identities, and the constructions and ambiguities of cultural representation.”
Stopping at the interactive experience Echoes of Nature created by Japanese artist Yuri Suzuki, Bin Kharbash saw how the artist challenged perceptions of natural and artificial shapes through a composition using pipes and horns. Suzuki is a sound artist, designer and electronic musician. His practice explores the realms of sound through designed pieces that examine the relationship between people and their environments, questioning how both music and sound evolve to create personal experiences.
The QAF programme included a range of music and art events, featuring performances by Sudanese duo MarSimba, Lebanese duo Rast, and the live techno music of Stick No Bills, accompanied by visual displays reflecting the culture of South Asia, among others. Singers and songwriters MazMars and SeidoSimba (MarSimba for you) are social media influencers-turned-musicians. Their signature melding of Sudanese and African beats are aimed to bring audiences to their feet – and it does so too. QAF aims to provide an opportunity for community members to explore the richness of the local art scene through cultural and visual experiences. It also aims to attract art collectors and artists and enable them to acquire artworks from emerging talent and various artistic groups, and to foster sustainable practices in the matter of collecting art.
