This week’s editorial musings from magpie’s nest
The quote: Sometimes you have to hug people you really don’t like. That way you’ll know how big to dig the hole in the back garden Anon [credit welcome]
SB17 curators Sharjah Art Foundationhas named Angela Harutyunyan and Paula Nascimento as the curators for Sharjah Biennial 17, due to open in January 2027. Harutyunyan is Professor of Contemporary Art and Theory, Berlin University of the Arts; she’s written extensively on historical temporality and curatorial theory. Nascimento is an independent curator and architect based in Luanda, noted for her interdisciplinary focus on contemporary readings of historical themes in and around Africa and the Global South. Looks like SB17 is going to be strong on contemporary alternatives and how we got here from there …
Home entertainment centre Home Centre has come up with the idea of using its retail spaces as “stages for culture, creativity, and community” under the label Home Centre Collective – “designed to be an ongoing space where authenticity, art, and community can meet and live, in-store”. Dubai gets to see this in action on 4 July; looks like it will be a small-stage performance area for music, and artists and others) are invited to pitch themselves to hc.collective@landmarkgroup.com …
Pottering about 2 When we mentioned Harry Potter: The Exhibition last week, prices hadn’t been set. We’re now told it will cost adults AED 135 – a bit more than we were forecasting – with discounts for children and seniors. You have to book a timed slot, unless you pay extra for a VIP ticket (they’re saying a visit should take 60-90 minutes). It’s open from 25 July into September and our reporter’s visit to one of the European iterations says it’s well worth seeing if you’re a fan. Book here …
Eurofilm We didn’t have room to list all the films showing at Abu Dhabi’s Cultural Foundation as part of the European Film Festival, but nearly all of them would be recommended if we could. As it happens, we particularly like the look of Mond and The Musicians (today), Io Sto BeneandTouki Bouki (Friday), and Tarrac (Saturday). Tickets are a bargain AED 25, and the Festival ends on Sunday …
Buy now while stocks last … The UAE’s GDP reached AED 1,776bn last year, a 4% increase on 2023 – by contrast the G7 countries average 1.5%, the 38 OECD members managed a paltry 0.4%, and the GCC as a whole clocked 2.9%. Non-oil GDP, which now accounts for over three-quarters of the UAE’s economy, grew by 5% YoY – and perhaps predictably the big contributors were transport (mostly airline passengers, aka tourists), construction, financial and insurance activities, and hospitality. Time to buy some shares?
… Tax the rich … Is this the way things are going? Oman is set be the first Gulf country to impose a personal income tax – 5% on earnings over OMR 42,000 per year (just over AED 400,000). It’s part of efforts to reduce dependance on oil and gas revenues, especially in view of depressed petroprices which are expected to continue through 2026 (the Iran situation may change that of course). Officials say the tax will affect only 1% of the population, and in any case spending on housing, health care, and education will be allowable offsets …
… A piece of Rump Developer Dar Global says all units at Dubai’s (caps lock on) TRUMP INTERNATIONAL HOTEL AND TOWER are expected to be sold by the end of summer. Of course. You’ll have to wait till 2031 to move in, mind. Read more here …
Monkey see monkey do The Monkey Project is a live experiment based on the idea that an infinite number of typing monkeys will eventually write all the works of Shakespeare. You get your own virtual monkey which types random characters at 10 per second and earns points for forming real words. magpie’s nominee is an orangutan named Twirilla Kadson …
Palais Pompidou Last week’s commentary implied that Louvre Abu Dhabi membership might be slightly degraded by lack of free access to the Centre Pompidou in Paris (closed for renovation till 2030). Seems we were a bit previous –– the Pompidou has temporarily relocated (in part) to the Grand Palais, newly reopened after an extensive refurb of its own. Free entry with a LouvreAD membership should work just fine there …
Drink up Coffee could be the key to staying strong while you get older. A seven-year study published in the European Journal of Nutrition found that regularly drinking four to six cups of coffee a day led to a reduced risk of “frailty” in the 1,100 over-55s surveyed. True, the research was funded by Big Coffee but it does seem to be pretty rigorous …
Abundant opps Lots of open calls on the Opportunities page this time. As well as the three closing-real-soon-now entries listed below, the full roster includes three Dubai Design Week calls, a new art writing residency and a publishing grant both via Sharjah Art Foundation, and the National Pavilion UAE’s first shout-out for the exhibition at the 20th Biennale Architettura di Venezia (May – Nov 2027). And that’s just a selection …
Last chance art Closing this week, worth seeing – Abdullah Al Othman at Iris Projects, Bashir Makhoul at Zawyeh, Layered Medium: We Are In Open Circuits at Manarat al Saadiyat, MyLesses at XVA
Useful app of the week Sophiana turns your writing into your own short video. The app – currently free for limited usage – asks what kind of tone you want to use, reads your pasted text, proposes some hooks, then generates a script for you to tweak. It uses the selfie camera to film you reading the script (the screen doubles as a teleprompter). You add captions, graphics, whatever, and save a film to upload to Tiktok, YouTube, or wherever your audience might be found. The basic idea is to bridge the divide between a medium which journalists, academics and other wordworkers find most comfortable; and the one their next potential audience prefers. It works pretty well … iOS only for now.
Something for the weekend Make music by waving your hands! Give The Arpeggiator access to your webcam, then start waving – left hand controls drum patterns, keys and synths on your right. Not sure there’s a way of saving your meisterwerks, but maybe that’s no bad thing. Try it here …
Things we didn’t know no.94 21% of Americans believe Bigfoot is real – at least according to a 2018 study, so the number may have changed now that there’s more truth and fewer conspiracies in the country …
Earworm of the week For Nina : Hounds
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