This week’s editorial musings
from magpie’s nest
The quote: World is crazier and more of it than we think / Incorrigibly plural Louis MacNiece
And, just like that, summer’s over and magpie Weekly is back – ready, willing, nay eager to keep you up to date with an opinionated overview of all that’s interesting in the UAE’s arts/culture/creative scene (as defined largely by our own preferences, of course, but they are pretty broad). That said, we want to make sure that we cover as much as possible: so if you have something going on that we should consider, email editor@magpie.ae with the details …
Film wins The winners of Sharjah Art Foundation’s inaugural Sharjah Film Platform Feature Fund are Annemarie Jacir’s Palestine 36 (2025) and Mohamad W. Ali’s Colored Sweets (2026). Both show at Sharjah Film Platform (14-23 Nov) – early-bird passes are now on sale at AED 40 …
Publicity 101 Amer Zahr has apparently decided to donate all of the fee he’ll get from his 11 Oct Dubai Comedy Festival show to UNWRA to support Palestinian refugees. Which is great, but would have been more impressive if he had managed to do that without proclaiming it on social media and in a press release (for instance, Coldplay have been donating 10% of their earnings to charitable causes for some time without asking for an extra round of applause) …
Click here Abu Dhabi’s Creative Media Authority is looking for Emirati Videographers and Photographers (for events coverage) and Video Editors (presumably to turn their work into “creative and innovative high-quality videos and short visual materials”). No more details are available – “shortlisted applicants will be contacted by the relevant team” – but UAE nationals can apply here …
Build it and they might come Fifteen finalists have been named for the inaugural RIBA Middle East Award, “showcasing the most transformative and socially impactful new architecture across the Gulf” (actually just UAE, KSA, Qatar, and Bahrain). There’s some really fine work here, like the Khor Kalba Wildlife Sanctuary and the boutique hotel conversion of the Bait Khalid Bin Ibrahim; but the prize will probably go to something more Dubai-ish like Terra – The Sustainability Pavilion or Al Wasl Plaza …
Long on The UAE tops the list of cricket-related searches per capita, according to sports betting stats website smartbettingguide.com. The Emirates averages 5,613 searches per 100,000 residents; it’s followed by Qatar (4,602 searches per 100,000 residents) and Kuwait (2,412) with India way down the list at 1,019. Mind you, there’s a lot more people in India …
Design wars Ithra’s flagship design event Tanween is back for its eight edition, running 17-22 November with six days of exhibitions, talks, workshops etc. Now that’s just a couple of weeks after Dubai Design Week, but the two are slightly different – Tanween is more structured, more organised, with more workshops, courses and competitions (including the Tanween Challenges open call: you have till 26 October to register to take part in one of the six-day ‘design sprints’). And of course there’s the scale: last year Tanween clocked up a tad more than 2,100 attendees while Dubai Design Week is looking for upwards of 140,000 …
Shopping for art Now this is interesting: an art advisory firm called Beaumont Nathan is setting up in Abu Dhabi (and not Dubai). The firm, which hitherto has worked out of London and New York, is smaller than many in its field – going specifically for HNWIs rather than a client base that includes institutions and corporations – and would claim to be more agile in spotting opportunities and finding art. Apropos of nothing, Abu Dhabi Art – which famously has a quite select and very local client base – is scheduled for 19-23 November.
Lateefa bin Hamoodah has been signed up as Regional Advisor to Beaumont Nathan; a well-connected cultural strategist and arts patron, she is a patron of the Louvre Abu Dhabi and had been involved in setting up Iris Projects, “a socially-driven visual arts and culture agency” in Abu Dhabi …
Three shows to see Among many opening today: Circus as metaphor from Elias Izoli at Ayyam Gallery, Marwan Bassiouni’s clever window views at Lawrie Shabibi, and an impressive group show for The Third Line’s 20th anniversary, curated by Shumon Basar. And one for the weekend: Bady Dalloul’s witty first institutional solo exhibition in the UAE is at the Jameel.
Today also sees the opening of Taymour Grahne Projects’ Alserkal Avenue space at warehouse 31a. Taymour Grahne is more an art advisory than a gallery, in fact, but it’s always good to see new entrants – especially when the opening show is by Gail Spaien, whose highly approachable work helped win her a Hopper Prize a few years ago …
Useful app of the week PDFsail is a completely free, easy-to-use online PDF facility that includes editing, converting, merging and compressing. Who needs Acrobat?
Something for the weekend Timdle is a chronology game: did the event happen before or after the previous one? Try it here.
Things we didn’t know no.94 Your number of the day: 23. Or rather, 23 percent – which is the proportion of the Anguilla government’s total revenue that comes from selling .ai domain names …
Earworm of the week Water From Your Eyes : Life Signs
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