Children’s Biennial
What a good idea this is: the Abu Dhabi Festival is running the first outdoor children’s art biennale in the Middle East Under the theme How the World Feels, the Biennale will explore how children experience the world through touch, sound, movement and light.
Featuring works and workshops by UAE-based artists and an international collaboration with National Gallery Singapore, the Biennale – curated by Dana Almazrouei – will offer family sessions, workshops and an interactive guide Nine participating artists are Alia AlShamsi, Aya Afaneh, Hana El-Sagini, Moza Almatrooshi, Moza Almazrouei, Meera Almazrooei, Nada Almosa and Sarah Afaneh, plus Indonesian artist Eko Nugroho; says the blurb, “they will transform Umm Al Emarat Park into a space where audiences of all ages can encounter art through touch, sound, movement and light … Through open-ended experiences, children are invited to experiment, question, collaborate, imagine and create their own meanings”.
Says Dana Almazrouei: “We wanted to ask the kind of questions adults often stop asking: what stories lie beneath the soil? How does sound travel through a park? Working with each artist, we thought first about how a child would experience the piece, and what they might carry with them afterwards … Play is how children come to understand the world. As historian Johan Huizinga observed, play creates temporary worlds shaped by shared rules and imagination, and that’s what we hope this park becomes. It isn’t just a way to make art accessible; it’s how children think, discover and build their own stories, together.”
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