Art Dubai announces Global Art Forum 2016

Dubai - Art Dubai's Global Art Forum is presented by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority and is supported by the Dubai Design District (d3).

Art Dubai has announced the full programme of the March 2016 Global Art Forum - a five-day conference known as an innovative platform for contemporary cultural debate.
Art Dubai's Global Art Forum is presented by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority and is supported by the Dubai Design District (d3).
The event "The Future Was" will explore ways in which artists, writers, technologists, historians, musicians and intellectuals have imagined - and are taking part in the forming of - the future, through ive talks, discussions, performances and commissioned projects.
"The future isn't what it used to be, which is why the tenth edition of the Global Art Forum is called 'The Future Was'. How did different parts of the world imagine their future fates? Technologically? Culturally? Creatively? Ideas can be time machines - so we're inviting some of the brightest minds to share their ideas and take us backwards and forwards through time and place," said Commissioner Shumon Basar.
The live talks will examine a diverse range of subjects including how museums and artists are working with "the future of the past", why fictional futures are typically shown to be deserts, space archaeology, Swiss-French architectural legend Le Corbusier's forgotten masterplan for Dubai, and our relationship with technology and the cloud.
"Over the past decade, the Global Art Forum has gained a reputation for a particular warm, innovative and investigative spirit, and it's certainly one of the liveliest and broadest of talks programmes," said Antonia Carver, Director of Art Dubai. "This year's speakers range from space scientists to world-renowned artists, and the presentations take in performance, sound, film, as well as ideas. To debate the future, and what it means to us, through past and present, seems particularly appropriate here in the UAE."
Artists will feature prominently in this year's Global Art Forum, which will include short films by Qatari writer and artist Sophia Al Maria that look into the possible future of our environment, as well as a new performance work by Monira Al Qadiri on the role of oil in the future of humankind.
Some of the speakers include urbanist and Brownbook founders Ahmed and Rashid bin Shabib, space archaeologist Alice Gorman, writer Sohrab Mahdavi, South African novelist Lauren Beukes and Emirati scientists leading the UAE's 2020 mission to Mars.
The event, at Madinat Jumeirah's newly expanded Fort Island, is free and the entire programme is open to the public.
reporters@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai