Culture in the post-Covid19 time

Art and culture industry in the UAE in the aftermath of  Covid-19 

“Artists have antennae that are extremely sensitive to impending change and can often detect it before anyone else.” - Serpentine Galleries co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist

1.   We are just emerging from one of the most unique periods of history in our time. The outbreak of Covid-19 at the beginning of 2020 and the ensuing period of lockdown resulted in public events being cancelled and life being effectively put on hold. As Minister of State, you have already spoken of the need for international collaboration to address global issues – how do you think this need translates into the arts and cultural sphere?

As the international community, we do not know what the art world and the art market will look like on the other side of this unprecedented crisis. Having said that, overcoming the grave challenges ahead of us will require international collaboration on multiple fronts and compassion. We cannot defeat this virus alone, both as people and as nations. 

Art and culture play a vital role in expressing and reinforcing the values of kindness, tolerance, understanding and a sense of a shared struggle. Despite the obvious practical challenges, now is the most crucial time to utilize art, culture and diplomacy across borders to try amending some of the wounds inflicted upon humanity with the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Cultural exchange can be a powerful antidote to the politics of division. While theatres, concert halls and galleries have closed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MOFAIC) has been working hard to keep the stage lights shining: 

-       Several UAE ambassadors have conducted a series of discussions in an online symposium with cultural leaders in their host countries. The online global dialogue revealed that cultural institutions everywhere are struggling amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, but they are also innovating and finding new ways to reach their audiences.

-       For example, the Japanese edition of the symposium focused on architecture. Ahmed Bukhash’s design for the Expo Live Pavilion was inspired by a meeting in a Bedouin tent between Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid, which initiated the co-operation that led to the founding of the UAE. But the Pavilion’s design is also influenced by Japanese origami art, intertwining the spirit of collaboration between two emirates with that between two nations.

-       The symposium has heard much from cultural leaders about the role of culture in engaging, entertaining and even providing solace to vulnerable people in these stressful times. When people are isolated, when loved ones are sick and when the world outside appears alienating, cultural engagement can enforce the sense of interconnectedness.

-       We also heard about the "museum without walls", a concept by the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto that allows visitors to tour its collections online.

An act of kindness can say a lot about a country’s culture. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the UAE’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said recently that he will “always remember the friends and partners who have supported us during this difficult time”. As such, acts of kindness can also serve as powerful examples of public diplomacy. This same compassion is reflected in the full support of the World Health Organization (WHO) and unwavering provision of aid to vulnerable communities around the world. As of mid-May, the UAE had provided 523 tones of aid to 47 countries. 

Unprecedented in modern history, this crisis will likely leave a grave mark on culture, art and humanity, imprinted on generations to come. Hence, we must not forget how cultural exchange can help to ensure we emerge stronger from this human tragedy - together. 

2.     You also mentioned the need to make globalization less “toxic” and more inclusive. As a leading art collector and cultural figurehead, how can arts and culture play a role in reducing the toxicity that you mention?

Ranked 41 in the Global Peace Index[1] in 2020, the United Arab Emirates has been a stable, prosperous and optimistic country. Our turbulent region and the historically unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic may pose many challenges. These are problems that can only be solved through more mutual respect and collaboration, given the current global reality of division and distrust.

To build the most optimal level of international cooperation against the backdrop of distrust and enclosure, it is vital to share the UAE’s core values, as this can provide the foundation for long-term partnership on political, economic and security issues.

One of the best ways we can do this is through cultural exchange, whether in the arts, film, literature or music. This is why the Abu Dhabi Louvre and Expo2020 are pertinent for global collaboration, because they enable a powerful conversation about our common humanity. 

As a direct response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Louvre Abu Dhabi has embraced a global concept of a “mindful museum.” Namely, tickets are purchased in advance, and paper maps and brochures are replaced with online ones, among other precautions. These novel global trends illustrate the inter-institutional conversations across the world to adapt to the new reality and globalize the most optimal response - together.  

Moreover, the Louvre Abu Dhabi launched a futuristic audio and visual experience, titled “We are not alone.” The exhibition is truly global in scope, featuring Hussain Al Jassmi, Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Zhou Dongyu, Nina Kraviz, Wim Wenders & Jean Nouvel.

The arts and culture, however, are not the only ways we can communicate shared values. I have diligently worked with diplomats and colleagues inside and outside MoFAIC to join the dots between these our rich cultural tapestry and our robust foreign policy, and to ensure that the UAE’s embassies are doing as much as they can to support and amplify those efforts, especially in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

3.     A long-time advocate of cultural diplomacy and pivotal in establishing the UAE as a hub of tolerance by promoting the arts industry, can you please explain how cultural diplomacy will help the UAE in the post-Covid period?

From its founding years, the UAE has prided itself with values of collaboration, understanding, tolerance, exchange, mutual respect, creativity, innovation and visionary leadership. To that extent, in order to fully and comprehensively address this question, I have to tackle our founding values and the legacy of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan, the founder of the UAE. 

Going back in time, I have spoken on a few occasions about the rock art heritage of the UAE and the concept of the “universal museum.” Close to the UAE’s capital in Al Hajar Mountains, which encompass parts of Oman and the as well, it is believed that there are at least hundreds of rock art examples the Iron Age and the Bronze Age, including the late pre-Islamic period. Copies of Bronze age Emirati Rock Art can be viewed today at the Al Ain National Archeological Museum, opened by the late Sheikh Zayed, back in 1969, before he even had the time or sufficient resources to start building the modern state. 

It is about the relentless vision that will not cease even amidst the worst health and socio-economic crisis in modern history. Let us not forget that the country had started developing in the aftermath of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The fact that in the late 1960s, Sheikh Zayed, worked to open a museum as a priority was a great visionary testament, ultimately setting the forward-looking trajectory of the country and its people.  

Moving to our current reality and building on the strong foundations of art and culture that have been embedded in the spirit of the nation from its early beginnings, the UAE is the host of Expo 2020, now postponed to 2021. As such, this country has a great responsibility to allow all participants to safely navigate the impact and the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic through a collective drive to pursue innovative thinking about the greatest challenge of our times. 

Even prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the process of digitizing and globalizing art and culture through technology started reverberating around the globe. To that extent, Google Arts & Culture has released virtual tours of thousands of museums, galleries and cultural sites around the world. Art institutions started offering online exhibitions of their collections together with assembled curatorial insights.

Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, the UAE art and culture industry has morphed its core operations to online and digital platforms in order to continue responding to the unwavering demands: 

-       To that extent, Dubai 360 started offering virtual tours of its historical and cultural sites, including Umm Al Sheif Majlis, Al Fahidi Historical District, Dubai Museum and Etihad Museum.

-       Featuring a major collection of modern Arab artworks, the virtual exhibition of the Barjeel Art Foundation exhibition traces significant art movements from the region. There’s a diverse list of artists from Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon, including Dia Azzawi, Samir Rafi and Huguette Caland.

-       Curated by Morad Montazami and Madeleine de Colnet, the “New Waves: Mohamed Melehi and the Casablanca Art School Archives” online presentation at the Alserkal Art Foundation traces a radical art movement that influences arts education in Morocco from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s. One of the movement's most innovative figures, Mohamed Melehi played a significant role in developing postcolonial Moroccan art and Arab Modernist art. 

-       With a trans-national goal, the Atassi Foundation in Dubai does not have a physical space, though it has staged pop-up exhibitions. Partnering with Google Arts & Culture, the foundation has shared two of its previous exhibitions in a catalogue-style presentation online: These Personal Revolutions, which highlights some of Syria’s seminal female artists across multiple generations, and Age of New Media, which explores the medium of painting and drawing.

To that extent, the UAE has done a great deal to support its art and culture industry amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, with the strategic aim of continuing and strengthening such support in its aftermath as well. In the same way that the UAE government has launched a number of economic and financial measures aimed at softening the hardships both enterprises and individuals are facing, we feel we have an equal duty to help artists and galleries in those difficult times. 

As another example, Dubai Culture & Art Authority announced support to the Art Jameel’s Research and Practice Platform, an independent organization that supports arts, education, and heritage in the UAE and across the region. Aligned with the government’s unrelenting efforts to support the local, national and regional communities amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, the aim is to help national and UAE-based talents successful in their applications to Art Jameel’s recently launched Research and Practice Platform.

Overall, as a carrier of the next world expo, the UAE will continue to bring people together in a spirit of hope and collaboration for a better and more interconnected future in the post-pandemic period. Therefore, it is imperative that the UAE continues working together with other nations, artists, experts and visionaries in order to further collective resilience and strengthen trust in the coming times.

4.     As artists and creative practitioners often respond to times of crisis, do you think there will be a spike in cultural activity and production after this pandemic? Do you foresee a shift in the way we will experience that art? (IE do you think we will view art remotely and from a distance moving forward, or do you think the art world will return to ‘normal’?)

Since time immemorial, art and culture have been humanity’s greatest connectors. Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, the art world has been far from immune. Hope might lie in the fact that, despite constraints in interacting with art physically, global communities have started seeking all mediums possible to access art, paving the way to possible post-Covid-19 practices, supported by cultural exchange, collaboration and diplomacy.

Even prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, a sense of malaise has become an integral part of everyday life through our shared experiences of natural disasters, terrorist attacks, migration crises, protracted violence and strife. In such a time, artists are at the forefront of illustrating humanity’s turbulence.  

Going back in history, Picasso's ‘Guernica’ (1937) memorializes the victims of the aerial bombardment of the titular Basque town during the Spanish civil war, becoming both a modernist masterpiece and an emblem for the fight against fascism across the world (Charlesworth, 2019).

Further, in the wake of Napoleon's conflict with Spain in the Peninsular War (1807-1814), Francisco Goya's legendary lithographic series ‘The Disasters of War’ remains a horrific, desolate and lasting example of art's power to confront man-made horror (Charlesworth, 2019).

During the Franco-Dutch Wars in the 17th century Europe and the ‘Year of Disaster’ (1672) in the Netherlands, Jan Vermeer, one of the greatest Dutch painters, produced a series of paintings depicting the spirit of peacefulness in calm domestic life, juxtaposed with the unrelenting violence and strife that had lived through.  

To that extent, the post-pandemic world of art and culture will reflect our lived reality in working together to further and catalyze existing trends.  Long-term, major themes in the global art and culture industry post-Covid-19 might touch upon: 

-       Diversification - The identity politics seen in art around the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements will grow as environmentalism, border politics and migration come even more sharply into focus. Art will become increasingly diverse, becoming more collective and experiential, rather than individual.

-       Climate change - Reports suggest that by 2040 the impacts of human-caused climate change will be inescapable, making it the big issue at the centre of art and life in 20 years’ time. Artists in the future will wrestle with the possibilities of the post-human and post-Anthropocene – artificial intelligence and human colonies in outer space.

-       Activism - Activism-art campaigns are indicative of shifting trends toward accountability. 

-       Multi-futurism - Some art analysts state that we should be ready for unanticipated things to happen, wherein we should prepare for many futures.

-       (Cross-sectoral) digitalization - The pandemic has birthed greater emphasis on virtual reality technologies, digital tours, online exhibitions and 3D gallery views as equally important to in-person artistic events, especially when the latter are not possible.  

The role of art and culture in bringing a positive change to the lives of people around the world, supported by global exchange and diplomacy, will mark post-Covid-19 recovery efforts. 

Figure 1: Excerpt quotes from global artists regarding the future of culture and art

5.     Do you feel there are any aspects of life during the pandemic that have been beneficial for the arts and culture industry?

Given that culture and art lie at the front of the UAE’s response to the pandemic, I truly believe that the art industry will rise from the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting crisis stronger than ever before with a great deal of lessons learned. 

Having quickly become a way for us to manage the mental shock of being separated from other people and our loved ones, culture and the creative spirit have showed us how to preserve the human spirit and hope at these uncertain times. 

The art and culture industry has the opportunity to truly imbibe interconnectivity due to shifts in the ways things are done across the globe. In the UAE, for instance, some of the great lessons learned during the pandemic include the expansion of dialogue between platforms within and outside the industry in order to find the most optimal solutions to sustain the art world. 

To that extent, Dubai Culture Authority and Art Dubai Group have jointly launched the ‘Dubai Ideathon’ in early April, an online platform that has the aim to gather ideas that can support art and cultural industries during the crisis. 

In a form of a comprehensive website, the Dubai Ideathon has identified six specific challenges that participants can address in their proposals. These include human capital, financial stability, business continuity and sustained creative production. Such issues primarily affect SMEs and freelancers, which make up the majority of the sector (Chaves, 2020).

To that extent, the past few months have reminded us about the importance of communication in finding innovative and sustainable solutions for the art and culture industry, at times spanning across the borders of any one country. On a broader level, communication also evokes collaboration, hence embodying the spirit of compassion and creativity, all of which continue to be essential elements of art and culture. 

6.     What brings you hope when you think about the arts and culture landscape in the UAE and beyond post Covid-19?

Now is the time to work hard on ensuring the long-term sustainability of our programs and projects which assist the art and culture industry, furthered by diplomacy beyond the borders of the UAE. 

Overwhelmingly supported by the country’s citizens and residents, the UAE government has made strides in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic within a comprehensive set of crisis-oriented policies which have naturally encompassed the art and culture sectors. What has been done thus far gives me full faith to think that, despite severe difficulties, the art and culture industries will not only persevere but lead us into the post-pandemic world. 

As the coronavirus pandemic causes an economic slowdown that is also crippling the arts and culture industry, the UAE’s Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development, Noura Al Kaabi, revealed that the government has gone to great lengths to assist both individual artists and established institutions. One of the primary steps that have been taken is the collection of information on the art and culture industry within the country to assess the damage. 

Encouraging a two-way communication channel with artists, business and institutions in the field, the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development has held weekly meetings with other ministries, including the Ministry of Economy, to present financial concerns to federal and local governments to move forward changes in policy.  

Within the Emirates, Abu Dhabi have already implemented stimulus packages to ease the burden of costs for consumers and businesses, including subsidies on water and electricity charges. Developers such as Dubai’s Meraas and Nakheel and Sharjah’s Alef Group have also put rent-relief measures in place for commercial spaces (Chaves, 2020). 

Within a sense of urgency that all of us are feeling, there is a great opportunity to improve existing processes and establish stronger connections between the government and the art and culture industry in the country, thus galvanizing positive post-pandemic changes across the region and beyond. 

In addition to the perseverance felt in the art and culture industry that I have witnessed in these past few months, the above-mentioned measures that have already been put in place and concrete plans that lie ahead bring great hope that things will normalize and burgeon in the coming times. 

[1]The Global Peace Index (GPI), which ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness. Produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), the GPI presents the most comprehensive data-driven analysis to-date on trends in peace, its economic value, and how to develop peaceful societies. The GPI covers 99.7 percent of the world’s population, using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources, and measures the state of peace across three domains: the level of Societal Safety and Security; the extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict; and the degree of Militarisation.