Aligned with ‘alternative ways of being’ and mindfulness, Slow Art Walks invite visitors to take the time to slow down and reflect, not to rush to unpack or understand. For three nights this Ramadan, we will be joined by critical voices from the arts—both emerging and established—to welcome you to spend an evening with artworks in the Avenue.

Maitha AlSuwaidi is a performance artist, writer, and researcher. She finds a vibrant and fluid synthesis of those three identifications through her work on politics and the internet, Ajami identity in the Gulf, the domestic and built environment, and Khaeelji folktales. She enjoys exploring intersectional/interdisciplinary themes within the ecosystems she exists and has existed in. As a poet, Maitha has performed her spoken poetry in internationally renowned spaces like the 2022 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. She is also a performance artist in both experimental and traditional theater spaces, where she enjoys creating multimedia spoken-word pieces, incorporating visual, sonic, and digital components.

Tatyana Nieves Brown is an African American and Afro-Puerto Rican social researcher, artist, and community organizer recently graduated from NYU Abu Dhabi. After participating in movements across the Americas, Europe, and Southwest Asia for land, gender, and racial justice, her research and art quickly centered a community she calls “cool kids in colonial crisis”—Gen-Z youth building solidarity across oceans on and off the internet. Her work in cultural institutions considers how we use digital tools, critical thought, and unconventional public spaces to imagine futurity together. As a Truman Scholar, her policy and movement work contemplates ways to tangibly build those realities through collective action. She is currently a Henry Luce Scholar, where she will spend a year in Taiwan exploring parallels in contemporary cultural and political transformation between Taiwan and Puerto Rico. Her long-term vision is to build translocal cultural platforms where we can build solidarity, strategize, (chill) and dream.

Meeting point: A4 Space