Dubai to get new art centre

Art Jameel, a non-profit organisation that supports arts, education and heritage in the Middle East, is building a new arts centre in Dubai, UAE, due to open in winter 2018. The Jameel Arts Centre, a 10,000-sq-m, three-storey multi-disciplinary space designed by UK-based firm Serie Architects, is designed as a hub for educational and research initiatives, while its wider programming embraces collaboration and partnerships with local, regional and international artists, curators and organisations. Located at the tip of Dubai’s Culture Village, overlooking the Dubai Creek, the centre includes more than 1,000 sq m of dedicated gallery space, plus a 300-sq-m open-access research centre dedicated to artists and cultural movements of the GCC and wider Arab world; additional flexible events spaces; a roof terrace (designed for film screenings and events); an outdoor sculpture area; and a café, restaurant and bookshop. Conceived as a series of boxes of varying dimensions that are bound together by a one storey high colonnade, the Jameel Arts Centre Dubai is an intimate place for experiencing and producing art. The building’s intelligent design offers a flexible and rich curatorial potential – from small intimate gallery for enjoying smaller works to large galleries with soaring height for large sculptures, said Art Jameel. Connecting the exhibition spaces are public outdoor courtyards, which offer moments of repose and reflection as one moves from one gallery to another. The colonnade also works as an active social space, charging the edge of the building with activities and enlivening the waterfront promenade. The massing of the building, its spatiality, and its façade articulation draws from the rich architectural tradition of the region – interpreted with a modern simplicity and elegance, it said. Renowned landscape architect Anouk Vogel has drawn inspiration from the desert biome for the concept for the courtyards that punctuate the building: each outdoor space will represent a distinct desert environment, and include some rare plants sourced from the UAE and around the world. Fady Mohammed Jameel, president of Art Jameel, explained: “We are delighted to be embarking on a new phase of development for Art Jameel – strengthening our programmes in Saudi Arabia, across the Arab world and internationally, as well as founding our first permanent space, the Jameel Arts Centre Dubai. Likewise, establishing a partnership with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the most-visited, encyclopedic museums in the world, allows us to further support contemporary artists from the region and share their work with a broad international public. We are proud to work closely with a number of partners to fulfill this important vision.” In advance of the opening of the Jameel Arts Centre Dubai in winter 2018, the organisation has opened a Project Space in Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, with a dynamic programme of exhibitions, projects, talks and events.