In a ground-breaking partnership with the University of Cambridge’s new Centre for Strategic Philanthropy, Abu Dhabi Festival brings the Centre’s pioneering executive education programme to emerging philanthropists from the GCC and MENA region.
In partnership with Ewa’a Shelter for Women and Children, a series of talks were hosted at the Expo 2020 Women’s Pavilion with international experts on humanitarian issues involving violence towards women. Aimed at strengthening awareness of violence and abuse, the talks explored what we can do as individuals, as a nation and as a community to make changes for a more violence-free world.
Through the arts, we reach the youth in workshops and performances that inspire and support them to innovate in science, technology, engineering, art and math.
Acclaimed Algerian filmmaker Salem Brahimi documents the inspiring story of Algerian Olympic champion Hassiba Boulmerka’s rise in the 1990s as a symbol of courage and resistance against death threats from religious extremists and oppression. Echoing the struggle of young Muslim women in some places to be allowed to jog and engage in sports, the film ultimately raises questions about the place of women in our societies.
In partnership with the Embassy of Japan to the UAE, Abu Dhabi Festival will showcase 42 prints produced by 10 prominent Japanese contemporary painters, including Yayoi Kusama, Masanari Murai and Yasukazu Tabuchi, who explored a wide range of possibilities through prints and expanded the range of expression in contemporary art using the print medium in the 1970s.
Beginning with a visual art exhibition, literature festival and musical performance, Abu Dhabi Festival is partnering with the Middle East Institute in an innovative ongoing collaboration to strengthen US-UAE cultural ties. In 2022, this diverse range of activities includes an exhibition of contemporary art by leading Middle Eastern artists whose work explores the impact of climate change on their communities and natural environment, and the need for greater sustainability.
Portrait of a Nation II, the book companion to Abu Dhabi Festival 2022’s flagship Portrait of a Nation II: Beyond Narratives exhibition, guides readers through the remarkable transformation of the UAE’s art history, tracing the path chartered by 62 pioneering artists who have shaped the UAE’s visual arts scene as it unfolded over the past 50 years.
Abu Dhabi Festival is launching Belgian-Iraqi composer and researcher Qoutayba Neaimi’s revolutionary new innovation, a musical system that will change the way musicians throughout the world understand Arab music.
Retracing the history of the oud over more than a century and presenting eminent oud players and musicians, this box set of 2 CDs and 1 DVD, with an accompanying booklet, is a comprehensive archive of the most iconic instrument from the Arab region.
