Jameel Arts Centre Youth Takeover

The annual Jameel Arts Centre Youth Takeover – a physical takeover of the Jameel’s spaces by the eight members of The Assembly 2022-2023 – features multiple audiovisual and artwork interventions around the stairs, passageways and galleries 9 and 10.

The Assembly is an annual talent development programme designed to support young artistic leadership in the UAE. Each year, eight creatives aged 18-24 are selected for a programme that focusses on curatorial practices as a learning exercise, responding to ongoing discourse while accessing Art Jameel’s network and opportunities. This year’s was designed, curated and facilitated by Shama Nair, independent curator, researcher, cultural projects manager and an alumnus of the 2021-22 Assembly.

The theme of this year’s takeover is composite, asking “what makes us?”. The principal exhibition, eight original commissions from young artists, proposes that the self holds multiple sources and components; “the artworks herein, compositions in their own right, exist in dense and relational dialogue. Their layers stack up over time, like the Earth’s stratas of rock, compressed over millions of years. In coming together, these composite voices meld and negotiate substances, placements, gain new meaning and condense into a shared form of immensity …”

The commissioned artists, including some Assembly members and young UAE-based artists, are:

• Abdallah El Abora with Dima Abou Zannad
• Alla Abdunabi
• Assi Abogado with Nathaniel Enriquez
• Auguste Nomeikaite
• Bilal Bashir with Ali Khaleel
• Joetto with Mariam Haddad
• Karno Dasgupta
• Raghe Farah

The 2023 Youth Takeover commissions are presented in conjunction with artwork loans from the Art Jameel Collection. The 2023 Takeover also features “public programmes that offer visitors space to nurture and explore their own composite self” — details to follow (check the website).

The Assembly 2022-2023 cohort members are artist Hala El Abora, artist and architect Farah Ali, visual artist Bilal Bashir, interdisciplinary researcher and artist Karno Dasgupta, artist Ronald Ekore, multidisciplinary artist Nathaniel Enriquez, photographer, filmmaker and writer Auguste Nomeikaite, and visual designer Saba Sayfaiee.

To 28 May.