Walk with me | Tour + Conversation

What do we uncover on a walk when we slow our pace and take the time to look around? Curator Zoé Whitley, along with artists Vikram Divecha and Asma Belhamar, guide us through this year's public art commissions, drawing on architectures of fragility, resilience, and public memory.

This Is Not Your Grave

Dima Srouji

Which places feel like home? Where do you find refuge? The ongoing genocide in Palestine is a poignant reminder that architecture doesn’t and cannot always serve its intended purpose. In times of desperation, compressed spaces such as tunnels, bathtubs, and staircases are repurposed as makeshift sanctuaries. This Is Not Your Grave is a multi-part installation. Seek out the Library beneath the staircase – where books are provided for you; a Sanctuary within the confines of a bathtub, and a Hearth inside a narrow tunnel. These spaces are an offering. Please accept the open invitation to congregate and dwell.

Thresholds of Perception: Redefining Balcony Spaces

Asma Belhamar

Look up to experience an evolution of the architectural history of Dubai, reimagined to a slower pace and observational potential of navigating the city on foot. Inspired by the vibrant life of apartment buildings where many communities converge, balconies become places of contemplation and connection. The balcony is a fascinating in-between space that blurs boundaries between inner and outer realms, public and private spheres. Take a moment to pause and reflect on our relationship with architectural façades, and how the built environment shapes our perspectives.

Stock: Variation on a Fountain

Abbas Akhavan

Stockpiling, in construction and in the building industry, refers to the accumulation of supplies and materials such as steel, bricks, sand, concrete, and gravel. From being the source of construction materials for Dubai, Al Quoz is transforming from an industrial district into an expanded art and culture district. As the area changes around us, Abbas Akhavan has created a welcoming installation that serves as a reminder of the area’s history and of the Avenue itself. Inspired by historical fountains, made of marble and stone, the installation remains true to these materials. Constructed from found materials sourced from Alserkal’s own long-term storage, marble chunks and cut pieces are arranged to form seating and to create water features, inviting passers-by to linger, rest, and reflect in an atmosphere of pleasure and respite.

Roof/Structures

Vikram Divecha

Desire is a tentpole of Dubai’s global appeal, where giant tarp billboards display promises of products, real estate and aspirational lifestyles. These durable tarps are later resold to countries in Asia and Africa where seductive billboard images get restretched upon humble roofs and makeshift awnings. This cycle of circulation extends to the migratory patterns of people from these regions, drawn into Gulf employment. Roof/Structures is an installation exploring themes of migration, aspiration and circulation. Divecha invited local workers to build familiar roof structures using bamboo and rope, stretching billboard tarps sourced from local markets over these structures. Flipped and kept standing on their sides, this vertical cluster reflects a cityscape of aspiration. After deinstall, the materials will be resold in the same second-hand markets.

Venue: Alserkal Avenue Lanes
Date: 17 November
Starts: 04:00 PM
Meeting point: Outside Alserkal Arts Foundation

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Biographies

Dr. Zoé Whitley is Director of the non-profit Chisenhale Gallery in London, championing the next generation of artists through producing era-defining new commissions. She co-curated the acclaimed Tate Modern exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power and its subsequent international tour (2017-2020). Whitley has distinguished herself as a curator working in leading UK institutions on exhibitions and collections research (as the British Council's curator of the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2019); Tate Modern (2014-2019); Tate Britain (2013-2015); V&A (2003-2013)). Alongside exhibition catalogues and artist monographs, she writes for all reading ages. She established Chisenhale Books, has authored children's titles Meet the Artist: Frank Bowling; Meet the Artist: Sophie Taeuber-Arp; and served as consultant for the award-winning young adult reader Black Artists Shaping the World (Thames & Hudson). Zoé is a member of the London Mayor's Commission on Diversity in the Public Realm. She is a Trustee of the Teiger Foundation and Sir John Soane's Museum.

Vikram Divecha is a Beirut-born artist who grew up in Mumbai and is based in the UAE. He holds an MFA in Visual Art from Columbia University and was a participant of the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study program. Divecha’s practice focuses on ‘found processes’ – a term he uses to describe the urban operations he investigates and deploys. Divecha recently had his first survey exhibition titled ‘Short Circuits’ at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai. His work has been exhibited regionally and internationally at the 2024 Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, 57th Venice Biennale UAE National Pavilion, 13th Sharjah Biennial, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Centre of Contemporary Art (Warsaw) and the Wallach Art Gallery (New York). He teaches as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at the New York University Abu Dhabi.

Asma Belhamar’s interdisciplinary practice explores the phenomenon of the megastructure in the Emirates and its impact on the topographical memory of local landscapes. Through installation, experimental print, video and three-dimensional modelling, she synthesizes the architectural and the organic to construct hybrid spaces that engage with notions of temporality and spatial memory. Her practice is driven by a desire to illustrate the effect that various architectural trends have had on perceptions of the Emirates both locally and globally. Her fascination with the architectural history of the UAE, particularly in Dubai, stems from a curiosity about design evolution and its reflection of societal changes over time.