ABOUT US

magpie is an information hub, commentator, advocate and general observer of the burgeoning arts and culture scene in the Gulf in general and the UAE in particular

The subhead – arts performance words design – summarises our spheres of interest. magpie aims to deal with topics that …

feature conscious use of skill and creative imagination;
go beyond the ordinary to eliciting a reaction from the audience and/or the participants;
match creativity with originality, imagination with ideas, technique with realisation;
do not have financial or commercial reward as the exclusive or even the prime driver.

Within those broad outlines we regard our territory as including this list (brainstormed by the team at our inception back in 2016):

architecture
art (just about all genres)
book clubs
ceramics
comedy
crafts
decorative art
design in general (graphic, interior, product, even fashion)
drawing
film and video
glass art (including engraving and studio glass)
installations, sculpture, 3D art
jewellery
metal engraving
music (most genres)
painting
performance
poetry
photography
printmaking and posters
writing in general

(but we’re always prepared to cover anything that fits).

What’s in magpie?

We’ve divided magpie into three main sections:

The Agenda Diary dates for events in and around the Gulf. Typically these will be performances, workshops and exhibitions – anything with a date, basically. (For art exhibitions and other multi-day ‘events’ we have one entry for the opening date and a ‘last chance’ notification for the closing date)
Opportunities Our pretty comprehensive selected list of open calls, competitions, residencies and similar opportunities for creative practitioners in the region. We summarise what’s on offer, what’s required, and what you get out of it
Features Our front page covers long-form previews, reports and comment from the local arts/culture/performance/design scene. For our feature writing we aim for solid editorial research, local relevance, informed opinion and entertaining prose

Why magpie?

Because a magpie is intelligent, distinctive, loud, and generally noticeable; and because a magpie is a collector of interesting things. All of those are aspirations for us.

Around a third of the population of the UAE comprises expats and locals who are typically educated to college level, have a relatively high disposable income, and combine an international appreciation of culture with a commitment to and enthusiasm for their current local environment. These are people who understand that entertainment, engagement and intellectual or imaginative stimulation doesn’t have to involve imported American pop stars and luxury brands.

Is that you? If so, you’re in the right place. We don’t expect that every reader will find everything we write about to be of direct relevance; we do expect that they will embrace the principle, share the vibe, and simply enjoy the look and feel of what we do.

Ads and sponsors

As a matter of policy we run very few advertisements; when we do, they will be simple banner strips on the website and/or the newsletter, or MPU boxes in the right hand column of website pages. We don’t do annoying pop-ups or similar.

And while we don’t run advertorials, we do sometimes carry editorial from a sponsor. This means an article that is written by us in the magpie style on a mutually agreed subject (so it’s an article that we could have considering running anyhow). Providing it fits the magpie ethos and style, we’re happy to talk about custom packages to suit a sponsor’s needs.