Art Dubai

This week, the city welcomes Art Dubai, the largest contemporary art festival in the region.


Art Dubai 2009 from Art Dubai on Vimeo.

To learn more about how this art festival will help spur culture in Dubai, a city of immigrants, we visited an art gallery.  We had a very interesting talk with the owner of the gallery, as well as the government official in charge of culture. The art scene in Dubai is small, largely because funding isn't available for full time artists. We had a very interesting talk about art in Dubai and how it could act as a public diplomacy tool for Dubai itself. The representative from the Ministry of Culture explained that until Dubai knows its own culture, it will be difficult for it to export it.