Abu Dhabi Art has announced details around its Beyond: Emerging Artistsprogramme, which commissions new work by up-and-coming UAE-based artists each year. Beyond: Emerging Artists 2024 will be curated by Lorenzo Fiaschi, Co-Founder of GALLERIA CONTINUA, who has selected the artists Fatma Al Ali, Dina Nazmi Khorchid and Simrin Mehra Agarwal to produce commissioned works to be exhibited at Abu Dhabi Art this year. The works will be on exhibition at Manarat Al Saadiyat from 20 – 24 November 2024, after which the exhibition will travel internationally to a new location.
Lorenzo Fiaschi, Curator for Beyond: Emerging Artists 2024, stated,
As we embark on this new journey with Abu Dhabi Art's Beyond Emerging Artists programme, we are excited to contribute to the region's vibrant contemporary art scene. Celebrating 18 years of collaboration with Abu Dhabi Art, GALLERIA CONTINUA is eager to witness and support the dynamic evolution of the art world. We are committed to embracing diversity, which enriches our collective artistic experience. We look forward to guiding the selected artists—Dina Nazmi Khorchid, Simrin Mehra Agarwal, and Fatma Al Ali—and helping them develop exceptional projects of international calibre that showcase the creativity and potential of today's artistic landscape.
Portrait of Lorenzo Fiaschi
The three selected artists were chosen from over 100 proposals reviewed by the Abu Dhabi Art organising committee and GALLERIA CONTINUA, and in consultation with Friends of Abu Dhabi Art, a group of individuals who are actively committed to supporting art and culture in the emirate and who support the Beyond Emerging Artists programme each year.
Abu Dhabi Art Director Dyala Nusseibeh commented,
During the selection process we were struck by how analytical and thoughtful each of the chosen proposals were, across diverse practices, unpicking issues that ranged from conflict and war to our relationship with the environment and the impact of colonialism on indigenous plant life in the Gulf. Together the commissioned artists navigate utopian or dystopian imagined landscapes, in often playful, often piercing ways, creating the space for new histories of the region to emerge.
Participating artist Simrin Mehra Agarwal stated,
I am honoured and thrilled to be selected for Beyond Emerging Artists 2024. This platform will help me realise and showcase ambitious projects regionally and internationally, creating a niche in the global contemporary art world. I look forward to contributing to the UAE and Gulf art scene during this transformative time. With the support and guidance from GALLERIA CONTINUA, I anticipate expanding my practice and elevating my work. I am grateful to Abu Dhabi Art and GALLERIA CONTINUA for this incredible opportunity.
Agarwal is a multidisciplinary artist based in Abu Dhabi. The commissioned installation for Abu Dhabi Art, titled Subterraneous, will be the outcome of her extensive research examining the war wrecks and artificial reefs of the UAE, conducted through field trips to dive sites several metres underwater. The monumental work encompassing mural, sculpture and video opens new perspectives and critically urgent dialogues, questioning our understanding of nature, and its various stages of bloom and decay within the context of histories of war, neglect, and contemporary issues of climate change. In the light of anthropogenic global warming and the accelerated extinction of species, the installation aims to inspire new possibilities for building worlds with the other-than-human in mind. The project seeks to create awareness and provoke thought about the destruction of natural resources and cultural heritage.
Portrait of Simrin Mehra Agarwal
Participating artist Fatma Al Ali commented,
I am thrilled to be selected for Beyond Emerging Artists and look forward to bringing my research to fruition by November. This platform will help share Emirati stories and history with a broader audience, preserving and celebrating our rich heritage. I am especially excited for the guidance and mentorship from Lorenzo Fiaschi and Salomé Zelic of GALLERIA CONTINUA, which will enhance the impact and appreciation of our cultural narrative.
Al Ali is a multidisciplinary artist whose diverse practice encompasses drawing, printmaking, video, sculpture, and installation. Inspired by an inquisitorial and academic archival approach, she delves into the realms of history, culture and sociology to inform her work. Al Ali's work is a reflection of her deep exploration of perception, materiality, memory, and societal constraints, all while challenging conventional notions of artmaking. Her commissioned work for Abu Dhabi Art will explore the historical power dynamics that shaped Gulf societies including through use of archival documents and oral histories and with a focus on revealing how certain traditions, practices and knowledge have been altered over time, influencing our present-day understanding of the region.
Portrait of Fatma Al Ali
Participating artist Dina Nazmi Khorchid stated,
Working with GALLERIA CONTINUA is a tremendous honour. Having conversations with the curators, their expertise and support, along with a platform to bring my work home and exhibit at Abu Dhabi Art, will do wonders for my artistic development.
Khorchid is a visual artist who works primarily with printed and woven textiles. Her work constructs narratives of place and connections to lost bodies, through mark-making, photography and material studies, that manifest as textiles and works on paper. She explores themes of identity and geo-politics, grief, land and memory access. Khorchid completed a Master of Fine Arts in Textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design (2023) and has had her work showcased in the UAE, USA, Tunisia and Lebanon.
Portrait of Dina Nazmi Khorchid
Her commissioned piece will build on Land, Untitled, an ongoing body of work, continuing her quest for a place of rooting and rebuilding aspects of memory. The work gestures toward personal and national narratives through metaphor, drawing on nature to explore the complexities of human emotions and politics.
The large-scale textile-based installation created for Abu Dhabi Art will resemble a curtain or barrier, portraying a non-place-specific landscape of unnatural colour and brush strokes, featuring inverted and abstracted trees that are standing firmly in the ground, yet fleeting in water, in a haunting immersive atmosphere. Creating an interpretation of statelessness and transiency, the installation alludes to a search for belonging, an unvisited yet familiar place of solitude, wander and emotional rest.
Through the Beyond Emerging Artists programme, Abu Dhabi Art is committed to supporting emerging local artists in the development of their work. The support offered by Abu Dhabi Art for selected artists includes critical feedback and dialogue with the appointed guest curator each year alongside financial support in covering the costs of artwork production fees, materials, time, travel and research, to enable the artists to create new works. Abu Dhabi Art brings recognition for their ambitious art projects through exhibiting the works to visitors at the Abu Dhabi Art fair as well as abroad afterwards each year.
Taking place from 20 – 24 November 2024, Abu Dhabi Art returns to Manarat Al Saadiyat for its 16th edition this year, bringing together a number of galleries and artists from across the world. As part of its year-round programming, Abu Dhabi Art exhibitions that have already commenced in 2024 include the exhibition of the 2023 Beyond Emerging Artists held at Marignana Arte in Venice, Italy from 16 April –15 May 2024 and the ongoing exhibition of their works and Gateway: Maqam which presents a mid-career survey show for Hashel Al Lamki in Durbar Hall, Kochi, India from 26 July 2024 – 18 August 2024.
