• Artists are invited to apply for the 2025 Artistic Research Grant

421 Arts Campus, Abu Dhabi’s independent platform dedicated to supporting emerging creative practices, announces artists selected for the 2024-25 capacity building programs and two new open calls. The programs, which include the Artistic Development Program and the Residency Program, will give seven artists the opportunity to work on major projects that explore contemporary and critical issues related to the region. Additionally, 421 also invites artists to apply now for the 2025 cycle of the Artistic Research Grant.

The seven selected artists are Alla Abdunabi, Juma Alhaj, and Ana Escobar, part of the 2025 Artistic Development Program; and Yousif Abdulsaid, Shama Al Hamed, Adrian Pepe, and Farah Soltani, who will be artists-in-residence from July to December 2024.

The 421 capacity building programs support artists and creative practitioners who have a sustained artistic practice or interest in creative disciplines. Often involving juries made up of locally and regionally based arts professionals, as well as pedagogical partners that contribute to the curricula, the capacity building programs function as a launching pad for the career development of young and emerging practitioners. Those programs are open to participation of students, recent graduates and early-career practitioners interested in visual arts, design and architecture, film, new media, literary arts and performance.

The artists selected to take part in the 421 Artistic Development Program 2024 are Alla Abdunabi, Juma Alhaj, and Ana Escobar. The 421 Artistic Development Program is designed to support rigorous practice in early to mid-career UAE-based artists. The program will support ambitious project proposals from conceptual development, realization, and production of new bodies of work, until their final solo exhibitions at the 421 spaces. The artists will receive sustained guidance from art educators, curators, interlocutors and their peers through critique and discussion, alongside a 10,000 AED participation grant. With this support, the artists will develop their work alongside the production of text materials, and a public program that is organized in response to the ideas and themes presented in their exhibition.

Alla Abdunabi’s practice is realized through sculpture and installation. Central to Abdunabi’s artistic methodology is the production of fragments, assembled to construct a sense of wholeness, whether rooted in factual events or products of the imagination.

Juma Alhaj has a background in visual communication and rhetoric, and has showcased his work in exhibitions such as Unofficial Histories at Art of Living on Jubail Island, Abu Dhabi (2024), and The Return at Alserkal Avenue, Dubai (2023).

Ana Escobar is a cross-disciplinary creative practitioner with a rich background in fashion, textiles, and metalsmithing. Escobar spent over a decade honing her skills through studio practice and freelance projects in fashion, trend forecasting and other crafts.

The artists selected to be part of the second cohort of the 421 Residency Program 2024 are Yousif Abdulsaid, Shama Al Hamed, Adrian Pepe, and Farah Soltani (New York University Abu Dhabi fellow). The residents were selected through an annual open call that ran from November 2023 to January 2024, where a jury of expert art professionals from the UAE came together to select the residents. The program supports artists based in the UAE and across the region, offering them special grants, financial resources, and professional support to work on the development of a milestone project in their practice.

Yousif Abdulsaid is a creative director and multidisciplinary artist based in Kuwait. After more than a decade of articulating works in the fashion and creative industries, Abdulsaid’s artistic practice travels between genres, encompassing architecture, interior design, product design, fashion, photography, and floristry to be cross-pollinated on every project.

Shama Al Hamed is an artist based in Abu Dhabi. Using painting as a primary medium, Al Hamed’s  artistic practice often investigates the self-portrait and its connections to narrative while exploring the dreamlike subconscious.

Adrian Pepe is a fiber artist based in Beirut. Pepe’s artistic practice is an ongoing investigation into material and process. His work interweaves nature and culture to present objects as tools to enable an open discourse on materiality, our morphing cultural landscape and present condition.

Farah Soltani is an artist based in Abu Dhabi. Soltani works across various media, including sculpture, painting, video, text, and installation. Her practice de-familiarizes the mundane, experimenting materially with ordinary objects subjects to elevate them beyond their familiar functions.

421 also invites artists to apply now for the 2025 cycle of the Artistic Research Grant and to stay tuned to apply for the third cohort of the 421 Residency Program.

More information is available below:
Artistic Research Grant
Deadline: October 23, 2024

The 421 Artistic Research Grant supports practice-based research investigating contemporary social questions through interdisciplinary methodologies and active engagement with the researcher’s community. While this is not an academic grant, a strong interaction with the historical, geographical, and intellectual context of a grantee’s topic and medium is expected.

Open to local and regional early-to-mid-career creative practitioners, the grant supports practice-based research investigating contemporary social questions through interdisciplinary methodologies and active engagement with the researcher’s community. Creative practitioners can work through disciplines including but not limited to visual art and curations, design and technology, literary arts, culinary arts, music, theater and performance. The grant targets topics that investigate the intersections of these disciplines with social and cultural topics, such as communal and public spaces, languages and linguistics, transportation and mobility systems, urbanity and its social and cultural fabric, economics and migration, and art institutions and ecosystems.

In the 2025 edition of the grant, projects that engage with questions of ecology & humans’ relationship to nature are encouraged, but not mandatory.

Practitioners whose research methodology is tactile and experiential, and includes material experimentation alongside community engagement, and whose outcomes extend beyond contributing to academia to include experiences, accessible content, and experiential artworks, are encouraged to apply.

Grantees will be awarded a budget up to AED75,000 to support their research and project. Apply now here: https://www.421.online/opportunities/artistic-research-grant/

For more information on upcoming open calls, please visit: https://www.421.online/opportunities/

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421, located in Mina Zayed, is open from 10 am to 8 pm, Tuesday to Sunday.

For press inquiries, please contact:
Azar Kilani
azar.alkilani@rpr.ae

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About 421

421 Arts Campus, is an independent arts platform dedicated to emerging artists and creative practitioners in the UAE and across the region. A site for research, learning, and experimentation, 421 provides a nurturing environment for emergent creative practices and those who want to harness the arts as an agent for social inquiry and transformation. 421 encourages practitioners to explore the potential of public spaces as a means for progress and community engagement through a wide-ranging programmatic model that facilitates artistic exchange and critical dialogue.

Located in Abu Dhabi’s Mina Zayed, 421 presents a year-round program of exhibitions, talks, workshops, special events, and educational initiatives that offer accessible learning opportunities to the wider community and the general public. Many of the 421 programs are organized in collaboration with local, regional, and international partners, engaging children, students, educators, and creative professionals in a participatory approach to artistic and creative practice. These programs are designed to develop artistic and creative skills, supporting the growth of the UAE’s creative ecosystem.