The Ras Al Khaimah Fine Arts Festival – which opens on Friday 4 February and runs to 31 March – has come a long way in 10 years, to the point where it’s now becoming established as a solid contributor to the UAE’s arts calendar.
That wasn’t always the case. In its early days RAKFAF was unashamedly parochial, aimed at people who lived and worked in the emirate and not especially concerned with attracting attention from beyond the border.
For 2022 the festival has retained its community spirit and especially its family orientation; as the official statement puts it, “we established RAKFAF to bring the community together to celebrate art, create opportunities for cultural exchange, and support the creative and artistic sectors of the emirate”.
But increasingly it is looking outwards, seeking to present RAK as a place where creativity can be seen as well as sourced and affirming a commitment to be part of the UAE’s wider cultural community.
As an example, RAKFAF has been seeking to develop new relationships with organisations from outside the emirate. This year for instance there’s a new partnership with the NYUAD Art Gallery on a curatorial development programme, links with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the US Mission to the UAE, and an Israeli guest curator.
The Festival has also evolved a distinct identity. In particular it seems friendly and intimate; there isn’t the us-and-them feel of say the Abu Dhabi Festival, where big-name artists are flown in from Europe or the States to do one or two performances in a gilded auditorium and occasionally deliver advanced workshops to semi-professionals.
Instead RAKFAF has a regular home in Al Jazirah Al Hamra Heritage Village, where for two months it hosts a large-scale, outdoor exhibition modelled after Festival La Glacially Photo in Brittany (which has 20 or so ‘outdoor galleries’ scattered around the town for the duration of the festival – which in 2021 is fully five months).
Al Jazirah Al Hamra is a traditional pearling village, some of it still in ruins and providing a genuine bridge between then and now. Restoration work has really picked up this year and four additional buildings have been opened as exhibition and workshop spaces; that makes a total of 11, plus the old fort. Wandering around the place is a genuine pleasure.
There are also also two satellite sites. One is on the observation deck on Jebel Jais, at 1,934m the UAE’s highest peak – a 170km round trip from Al Hamra. The other is at Al Marjan Open Park, part of the still-developing Marjan Island, a more convenient 15 minute drive away. These seem to be included in the RAKFAF portfolio to appeal to tourists (none the worse for that: Jebel Jais is a genuinely impressive backdrop for the 15 or so open-air exhibits there) and/or to allow some visibility for a sponsor – which in this case is Marjan the organisation, the leading master developer for freehold land in RAK. Again though you can’t be too cynical; the beachside location provides an interesting and unstuffy setting for al fresco art with food trucks and pleasing views.
The outdoor exhibits of art, photography and sculpture come from more than 150 artists hailing from more than 45 countries and provide the meat of the festival. RAKFAF’s theme this year is The Journey – symbolic of its own 10-year anniversary, and also the UAE’s 50th. Artists have been invited to consider through the lens of ancestry, migration, national identity and personal growth, which should be sufficiently open-ended to provide some interesting interpretations.
Bayt 8 at Al Jazirah Al Hamra houses a show by Abhirami Suresh. The Indian born designer and creative researcher, a long-time UAE-resident, is the first graduate of the RAKFAF Curatorial Development Program; newly launched this year in association with NYUAD Art Gallery, the programs aims to help counter the sparsity of local opportunities for curatorial training by providing a four-month mentorship.
Titled Where We Dwell, his exhibition is a reflection on the relationship between RAKFAF and the Heritage Village, exploring the broader transactional relationship between individuals and the environments they live with and within. Treating our spatial experiences and the body as landscapes through which we traverse, the show explores how our journeys through these landscapes shape our perception of the world.
A lot of attention will go to RAKFAF’s featured artist for 2022, the award-winning Emirati photographer Yousef Al Zaabi. Born and raised in Ras Al Khaimah, Al Zaabi specialises in portraiture and street photography; he’s a Vice President of the Union of Arab Photographers and founded the Emirates Falcons Photography Society, and he’s a winner both of the Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum International Photography Award and the Emirates Photography Competition. Yousef Al Zaabi’s exhibition UAE: Past, Present, and Futures is in The Fort at Al Jazirah Al Hamra.
A special exhibition from the Al Qasimi Foundation, Travel in COVID, chronicles life worldwide in the wake of a pandemic. How has the pandemic shaped our experience of the world? How has Covid-19 affected our mobility? How do individuals navigate journeys marked by rapidly changing rules and regulations? Curated by Suqrat Bin Bisher, Azza Al Nuaimi, and Ji Young Kim, the exhibition promises an immersive art experience, including mixed media photography and journal entries. It’s at the AQF Villa at Al Jazirah Al Hamra, which conveniently also houses a decent café.
The guest curator this year is Sharon Toval, who has an exhibit in Bayt 5 (right next to the Fort) titled Longing Be-longing: In Post-Orientalist Influences in Contemporary Israeli Art. An independent art curator, born in France but now based in Tel Aviv, Toval says he aims to build artistic bridges that will overcome today’s sociopolitical and geographical crises. For the last couple of years he has managed and curated The Lab, a self-owned art space dedicated to experimental art which includes 12 artists on rotation every year.
Toval’s theme is what he calls a post-Orientalist mindset emblematic of the complexity within contemporary Israeli society; by comparison with 19th century Orientalism, a very Western way to view the East that played on exoticism and otherness, he sees a new generation of Israelis whose parents actually moved to the country from those ‘Oriental’ places. The result is something of a longing for a simpler, more genuine way of life that contrasts with the sometimes oppressive modernity of today’s Israel. It should make for a fascinating commentary on the country – and maybe by extension on other parts of the Middle East that espouse similar goals.
Two artists have received grants from the US Mission to the UAE with have resulted in exhibitions in Bayt 7. Kirsten Decker, an American living in Dubai, works primarily with with analogue and digital photography to explore themes of nostalgia, childhood, and family. Her exhibition is titled Identity in Location. Born and raised in Sarajevo, Selma Ćatović Hughes’s artistic practice has been heavily influenced by her experience of the Bosnian War, contemplating the everyday and searching for the unusual. Intrigued by the concept of beauty, the ritual of (un)veiling, and exploring the fine line between literal and phenomenal beauty, Selma has experimented on numerous mixed media projects of different scales, materials, and functionality.
Bayt 9 has Channeling Change: Inside a Designers Brain. First exhibited at the Netherlands pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, this is an exploration of sustainability by 14 hip young Dutch design studios. Curated by Margriet Vollenberg of Ventura Projects, the show spotlights how Dutch designers use the environmental and social challenges of today – “within the Dutch design sector, sustainability is no longer a constraint. On the contrary, it has become the starting point. Why create, design, conceive if it is not sustainable or contributes to improvements in the triangle of environment, people, nature?”
Also is Bayt 9 is RAKFAF’s artist-in-residence Perry El-Ashmawi with an exhibition titled RE-LIVING: An Homage to Old Traditions in Modern Society. She has created a body of work that promotes a visual narrative of the Gulf region, with artworks that combine traditional Emirati crafts with contemporary painting – “I believe that traditional materials, fabrics, and handmade crafts emphasise the identity of Emirati communities,” says the artist. “My works are hybrids that combine the delicacy of Arab rituals and expressive painted elements.”
Inspired by the intricate embroidery and the arabesque patterns worn by tribal craftswomen, she sourced traditional handmade materials and fabrics found in Ras Al Khaimah and has used them as surfaces to paint on. “This became a turning point in my pictorial technique, developing a more contemporary painting method using traditionally established materials. Together, they create a visual homage to the region’s authenticity.”
The two Bayt 9 shows run to the end of February only (the rest of the exhibitions are live to the end of the festival).
Incidentally the Festival will again use Fynd.art, a digital companion for exhibition and art fairs that is becoming the go-to technology for visits.. It’s an easy-to-use web application (no direct-access smartphone app yet, sadly) with point-and-click object detection and image recognition; visitors snap the artwork with their phone and information about the piece they are looking at appears on the screen.
Fynd.art has been around for a couple of years now. RAKFAF and World Art Dubai used it last year, and so did the inaugural Al Murabbaa Arts Festival in Ajman last October. It’s currently being demonstrated at the Austria pavilion at Expo 2020 and this year’s takers include World Art Dubai again.
Film: The Festival will host a diverse array of short films from the region and beyond including documentaries, foreign language and drama with screenings at the Al Hamra Mall Vox on 28 February and 4 March. The programme includes Sara Alhashimi’s Why is My Grandfather’s Bed in Our Living Room? ‘Everyday, Except Sunday, directed by Luis Carlos Soto Ruiz from Guatemala; and Luminar, directed by Nada Jahed from Jordan.
History: RAKFAF has always emphasised the history of the emirate, and Al Jazirah Al Hamra is one of its most interested sites. Staff from RAK’s Department of Antiquities and Museums lead historical tours of the Heritage Village, 4-6pm on 13, 19 and 27 February – free, but preregister. There will also be walking tours of Old Ras Al Khaimah’s food and heritage sites with Festival guides, again free, 5-7pm on 11, 18 and 26 February, starting at the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Salim Al Qasimi Mosque on the Corniche road; register here.
Workshops: There are a series of hands-on art and photography workshops during the February weekends of the Festival, from 4 to 6pm on 12 and 13 February, 19 and 20 February, and 26 and 27 February.
Panels: The Heritage Village hosts four interesting-looking RAKFAF panel discussions:
- Sustainability in the Arts and Evaluating its Impact on our Society 5 February 5pm
- Documenting History through Art 5 February 6pm
- Education in the Arts 12 February 6pm
- World of Grants: Advancing your Careers through Institutional Funding 12 February 6pm
Special focus: And two weekends of RAKFAF at Al Jazirah Al Hamra carry a particular theme:
- Cultural weekend – focuses on tradition: ghawa making (Arabic coffee), traditional storytelling, camel rides, local theatre from members of the National Theatre of Ras Al Khaimah 25-17 February
- Pet friendly weekend – pet-centred events and workshops, “pet yoga” (which we think is done with rather than by your animal companion), paw print moulding, pet portraits and even pet adoption (via RAK Animal Welfare Center) 18-20 February
There’s more information on the website, which also caters for advance bookings. RAKFAF opens at 8.30pm on 4 February – a Grand Opening with fireworks – and runs to 31 March. The Festival is open daily 8am to 6pm (to 10pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday). Access is free. We’re told there will be F&B on site, and there are plenty of food and drink spots (including alcohol) in the Hamra complex a few minutes drive away.
incidentally, if you can’t make in person, a virtual tour of the Festival will also be available on YouTube and via the website after the Grand Opening on 4 February.
Be the first to comment