The winning artwork of The Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award 2024 has been unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art. Datecrete Bee Hotel is an installation crafted from the eponymous eco-friendly material – Datecrete is made from date pits with none of the concrete or resin traditionally used to give building materials som strength.
The winning artists of the twelfth edition of The Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award are Sara Farha and Khaled Shalkha, the husband and wife team who developed Datecrete. Sara Farha is an architectural engineer and urban planner, Khaled Shalkha is a chemical engineer; a couple of years ago they set out to identify a sustainable and low-cost alternative to Portland cement based on date seeds. The resulting Datecrete utilises the seeds’ inherent mechanical properties, has a texture smooth enough to use in the home, and exhibits a commendable cultural relevance. The pair have founded Datecrete Studio to explore the merger of material innovation and design.
Their Christo Award structure is designed to attract solitary bees; we’re told it will remain up for three months, during which the interaction between bees and the structure will be filmed. The final artwork will include both the structure and the documentary, showcasing what will hopefully be the organic development of an ecological relationship.
On the other hand, the piece will be moved around a bit – it’s at the Manarat al Saadiyat for Abu Dhabi Art for a couple of days, then moves to NYUAD for exhibition from 26 November to 11 December, then has a couple of weeks at Umm Al Emarat Park (12 to 27 December). We asked an expert if the bees would mind this, and Gemini told us that solitary bees wouldn’t generally be bothered by their bee hotel being moved as long as it’s not done during their nesting period (usually March to May). So that’s all good then.
The Award’s director Emily Doherty called it “a work that is beautiful, useful, and important”. And Maya Allison, Executive Director of the NYUAD Art Gallery which collaborates in the award, said Datecrete Bee Hotel “offers a future-facing vision of public art as a participant in non-human ecosystems … It reasserts our interconnectedness: species, structures, plants. We humans are living participants in the ecosystem, constructing buildings and public art, among which humans move and thrive, weaving a meaningful urban fabric.”
For this project Farha and Shalkha were mentored by Christianna Bonin, Assistant Professor at the AUS College of Architecture, Art and Design.
Since its inception in 2013, The Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award has served as a launchpad for emerging artists – it’s the only local award that offers the opportunity to work from the point of commission to exhibition. The programme is open to UAE-based students and recent graduates.
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