Alserkal Art Month: weekend 1

Here’s the schedule for the first Sunday of Alserkal Avenue’s Art Month (18 April to 19 May):

3-4pm Project Space KIDS’ WORKSHOP Animal Comic Creations
Participants (aged 7+) design their own comic-style story, inspired by an animal of their choice featured in Qudwati, a publication by Zayed National Museum

4-5pm Common Room CONVERSATION From Symbols To Stories
Nassra Al Buainain from Zayed National Museum discusses the way that historical art — from symbols and motifs to colours and patterns — offers insight into how past societies in the Arabian Peninsula understood their world

4pm start at The Yard TOUR Guided Galleries Tour
Independent curator Shannon Ayers Holden (who’s also Associate Director of Community Relations at Alserkal Avenue) leads a curated tour through selected Alserkal galleries

5pm start at The Yard TOUR Slow Art Walk
Researcher and archivist Faris Shomali leads a tour of three selected galleries that offers an alternative way to engage with art, “taking the time to slow down and reflect rather than rushing to unpack or understand”

5.30pm Firetti Contemporary PERFORMANCE Khozema Al Aaed: Deeper Than You Know
A “performative installation” by Khozema Al Aaed (whose current show at Firetti has just ended) is an extension of his Maps & Cities Series. Al Aaed’s practice explores surfaces  – particularly that of the city – as living entities that bear the traces of human passage, “where geography is reread as an emotional and mnemonic space rather than a purely architectural structure”