This week’s editorial musings
from magpie’s nest
The quote Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction Francis Picabia
It’s the end of Abu Dhabi Art as we know it Having established itself as the biggest regional art fair of 2025, Abu Dhabi Art will have just one more edition (19-23 Nov) before being reborn as Frieze Abu Dhabi. Good thing or bad? We wandered through the background, asked a couple of local gallerists what they made of the news and the recent Art Basel Qatar announcements, and wondered what the future holds – for the Gulf’s art ecosystem, for Gulf-adjacent artists, and for Art Dubai. Is the region big enough for three art fairs a year, each aiming for 100+ galleries?
Accessible ZNM … The Zayed National Museum is the first cultural institution in the Middle East to sign up to the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower programme. This international imitative enables individuals with hidden disabilities, such as chronic pain, autism, anxiety and dementia, to discreetly indicate that they may require additional support by wearing a Sunflower lanyard or pin; trained museum staff will be identified by their own Sunflower pins (the museum aims to have “up to” 80% its staff fully trained by the December opening) …
… Accessible art With funds raised by Taj Hotels through the estimable Art be a Part, a new school bus has been donated to Dubai’s Special Needs Future Development Center (supports special needs students) with a paint job by French-Tunisian calligraffiti artist eL Seed and a group of children of determination. The result: “a moving artwork that tells a story of inclusion, empowerment, and the boundless possibilities of artistic collaboration”. Great idea. The bus will now be used daily to transport students from their homes to the SNF centre …
Sounds right The third Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale (30 Jan – 23 Apr) will be titled In Interludes and Transitions – drawn from “a colloquial phrase invoking the cycles of encampments and journeys in nomadic communities in the Arabian Peninsula, taking as a point of departure the movements, migrations, and transformations that continue to connect the Gulf region with the world”. Interestingly, there’s something of a focus on “movement, processions, and cultural transmission” with sound-based artworks alongside visual art, music, and performance. It will have 70+ artists and 20+ new commissions …
Filling in Of course it had to happen: the long boring strip of E11 between Abu Dhabi and Dubai is due for major development, staring with the southern end – AD Ports has signed a AED 2.47 bn deal with Dubai-based Mira Developments to build a massive mixed-use community, including 14,000 apartments, 1,700 villas, 1,000 townhouses, three hotels, golf courses, schools and, of course, “one of the region’s largest shopping malls”. It looks as though it will take up a chunk of space between the E11 and E311 near Khalifa Industrial City when it’s ready in 10 years time …
Driver-free Ubers The Chinese autonomous driving startup WeRide, which is has the early lead in the (ahem) drive for driverless taxis, is now officially active in Abu Dhabi via a new ‘Autonomous’ ride-hailing category in the Uber app – the first time Uber has offered the option anywhere in the world. It’s limited to routes around Yas, Saadiyat, Al Reem, and Al Maryah, plus the airport (downtown comes next year). WeRide has actually been trialling with Uber for a year, with standard bookings occasionally matched with a WeRide Robotaxi; now it’s an explicit option at the same price as Uber Comfort. WeRide’s Robobus has just announced that it be operating across nine stops on Al Marjan Island in RAK; Dubai comes next year for buses and taxis, with both WeRide and Pony.ai getting trials …
Last-chance opps You only have till 20 Oct to get in some ideas for an exhibition proposal at 421 next year.
And also getting near is the 31 Oct deadline for the Design Doha Prize. Four designers are selected across four different design categories (Craft, Product Design. Furniture Design, “Emerging Talent”); each gets QR 200,000, about the same in AED …
Real-time life Utterly banal, but somehow strangely life-affirming: a database of publicly accessible webcams, from majestic landscapes to launderettes. None in the UAE, of course …
Useful app of the week Digital Creativity Tools does exactly what it says – it’s an online directory of useful tools and resources to help you create stuff online, mainly free. Good for students, but also loads of inspiration for the rest of us …
Something for the weekend Wordslide is (another) daily word puzzle: rearrange the letters in a grid by sliding them along the rows and columns so that it forms words both vertically and horizontally. Harder than it looks … Try it here.
Things we didn’t know no.94 A group of flamingoes is called a ‘flamboyance‘. Just perfect …
Earworm of the week Mandy, Indiana : Pinking Shears
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