The summer schedule for Dubai’s cultural mecca Alserkal Avenue has been unveiled, and it includes three weekends of workshops, panel discussions, live interactive performances, movie screenings, and exhibitions. According to the event’s organisers, More Than Human, which takes place from August 13 to 28, will look at how people’s lives interact with other objects that occupy their surroundings.
Under-Ground: August 13 – 14
Artist and researcher Fatema Al Fardan, interdisciplinary artist Zuhoor Al Sayegh, artist and researcher Lubnah Ansari, poet and director Arthur De Oliveira, and writer and photographer Vamika Sinha collaborated to produce the programme.
Under the overarching theme of More Than Human, each weekend will focus on a different sub-topic at Jossa in the artists district. The first weekend will focus on the idea of what lies beneath the surface, both literally and figuratively, including veins beneath the skin, ant tunnels in the ground, and complicated emotions concealed by impenetrable facial expressions.
A papermaking session called Tracing Paper will be included in the programme. Along with Lara Hussein and Ceylan Uren, co-founders of The Waste Lab, a start-up working to reduce food waste in the UAE, and Yazen Al Kodmani, farm manager at Emirates Bio Farm, where he has developed a method of large-scale organic farming, there will also be a talk titled Secret Underground Networks by city strategist and creative thought leader Dima Al Srouri.
A multimedia performance titled Amulets of Palm will also be performed by performance artists Maitha AlSuwaidi and playwright and theatre artist Reem Almenhali. This performance will be followed by a discussion about the myths surrounding palm trees.
Ground: August 20 – 21
Grounds investigates how components from the ground are incorporated into the buildings and residences that we use and call home.
The Outside In, a film by Indian director Hansa Thapliyal, will be screened as part of the programme. The Outside In follows the work of two women who make dolls out of commonplace materials. Following the movie, Iram Ghufran, a filmmaker and scholar, will moderate a discussion.
Sound artist Safeya Alblooshi is running a workshop called Moving Mountains in association with the physical therapy office Joint Space. It will lead participants on a trip to examine their own physicality and connection to the ground via movement, audio, and live sound-mixing.
Additionally, Werner Herzog’s 1971 documentary Fata Morgana, regarded as the father of New German Cinema, will be shown at Cinema Akil. In the strange documentary Fata Morgana, the Sahara desert and its otherworldly mirages are examined.
Beyond Ground: August 27 – 28
The final weekend of the programme will explore concepts on how we can go beyond the confines of earth through various media.
The event features Generative Human, a Sima Performing Arts production inspired by NFT artworks. A discussion moderated by cultural journalist Anna Seaman and author and photographer Sinha about the performance will take place after it.
The final weekend of summer activities along Alserkal Avenue will close with two seminars. The Coffee Cup Reading Workshop at Kave will look at cosmological stories as they are told in earthly elements like coffee. Participants in Fantastical Body, a magical realism and fiction-writing course at Crank, will examine how the real world and human body may coexist in fantastical settings.
