Meditations on a Season in Transit

By Shama Nair
Published on April 1, 2024

1. There You Are 2024, Night School. Rana AlMutawa Book Launch. Facilitated by Todd Reisz. Courtesy of Art Jameel. Photo by Niño Consorte for Seeing Things.

Over the past three weeks, marked by a collective welcome to the holy month of Ramadan, we have slowly adjusted to a new rhythm and tempo of the city. Rush hour shifted up; at night, crowds gathered in neighbourhoods of the city that would otherwise be quiet; kitchens came alive in the early hours of the AM. With revised working hours, corporate employees (attempted to) reclaim some lost time. Body clocks and mind clocks found a new routine, and for the 30 day period, we find ourselves moving a little differently in the city. The weather too finds itself in a state of transit as March languidly falls into April.

As we collectively shift into a new present, one can’t help but appreciate – or at least pay mind to – the facets of the cityscape that become apparent when we look up from our digital devices and focus on the ground beneath our feet. Occasionally, we share these observations in casual everyday conversations but there is something special about a collective, intentional contemplation of the urban experience that allows us to actively reiterate that no matter how bubbled we assume our individual lives may be, we are in fact sharing ground, air, and space with a wider, vibrant, pulsating ecosystem of city dwellers.

Over the past three weeks, marked by a collective welcome to the holy month of Ramadan, we have slowly adjusted to a new rhythm and tempo of the city.

Since 2022, the Night School programme at the Jameel Arts Centre – developed by architect and writer Todd Reisz – has held space for conversations that prompt us to pause and look closely at the city we inhabit, and lays ground for a new vocabulary that’s true to the particular urban experience of Dubai and the UAE. This season’s theme, There You Are, brought audiences together to dig deeper into the here and now.

Although primarily structured as a 4-week course of closed seminars for a cohort, since last year, the programme has opened its doors to invite a wider audience of local residents to participate in a much needed conversation about city life that moves beyond architecture, design, and technology.

This season’s public programmes introduced us to four thinkers who shared with us four distinct readings of the city, ultimately pointing at the reality of how, when we strip away the meta-narratives surrounding Gulf cities often unknowingly absorbed through the mainstream, we find ourselves in a vibrant universe of countless stories and serendipitous interconnections that speak to the heart of human ingenuity, and an innate desire to belong.

In retrospect, the presentations by Deepak Unnikrishnan, Hind Mezaina, Dr. Rana AlMutawa, and Dr. Neha Vora together give us a story of the city in three chapters that speak of active presence, both corporeal and spiritual, prompting us to consider how bodies walk, dance, move, contort, see, labour, meet, and drift through the metropolis.

This season’s public programmes introduced us to four thinkers who shared with us four distinct readings of [Dubai].

On Body

How does lived experience settle, sediment and churn within the body?

2. Above: There You Are 2024, Night School. Deepak Unnikrishnan Lecture. Facilitated by Todd Reisz. Courtesy of Art Jameel. Photo by Kristina Sergeeva for Seeing Things. Below: Labour card issued on January 17, 1973, to Mr Vattappilly Unnikrishnan. Courtesy The National News.

Deepak Unnikrishnan, author of the acclaimed novel Temporary People, opened the series of public programmes with a lecture that prompts a careful consideration of the ways in which our interactions with the city shape us, literally, politically, and spiritually: the weight of our steps, the strength of our postures, our desire to linger and be visible, our instincts to walk swiftly out of sight, how much or how little space we wish to or need to occupy. More specifically, he narrates his experience of what it means to actively inhabit a brown body, and the tension between seeing and being seen.

Deepak Unnikrishnan opened the series of public programmes with a lecture that prompts a careful consideration of the ways in which our interactions with the city shape us, literally, politically, and spiritually.

Beginning his presentation with a reference to Teju Cole’s rereading of James Baldwin’s Stranger In The Village, Deepak situates his own experience within a wider universe of long standing conversations surrounding race, heritage, agency, and alienation, ultimately bringing our attention to the ways in which they manifest in the relationships we hold, the homes we build, and the labour we participate in our everyday lives.

Through his experiences as a young boy growing up in "a neighbourhood where everything was still” in eighties and nineties Abu Dhabi, we witness the unraveling of a complex web of observations, memories, and encounters that echo the diasporic experience of countless second generation South Asians in Gulf cities. Through anecdotes that ring all too familiar, we’re reminded that some of the most poignant revelations about our sense of self come to us at airport immigration counters or over silent conversations with our fathers.

On Land

3. Stills, Blue Honda Civic (Jussi Eerola, 2020, Finland, No dialogue, 10min).

The film programme by artist and film curator Hind Mezaina, a segment without which Night School is incomplete, serves as a tender invitation to audiences to gather in JAC’s cosy, dimly lit foyer overlooking the city lights dotting the creek, and immerse in new worlds and architectures through the celluloid form. The screen acts as a portal, window, and mirror granting access to spaces strange and familiar at the same time.

The film programme by artist and film curator Hind Mezaina, a segment without which Night School is incomplete, serves as a tender invitation to audiences to immerse in new worlds and architectures through the celluloid form.

Titled Traversing Landscapes, the 2024 selection of short films by Hind foregrounded landscapes as sites of navigation, memory, and being. Over the course of the 5 short films devoid of dialogue, we travel from Mexico to Las Vegas to South Western Iran, observing changing terrain, weather, and populace, and the ways in which one builds a relationship with their immediate ecosystems.

We begin with El Chinero, A Phantom Hill (Bani Khoshnoudi, 2022) - an 11 minute documentary style footage that traces a spectral residue of the violent exodus resulting from the Mexican Revolution of 1916. Where there is a seemingly still, arid and desolate site, there is also the meeting of “myth and identity, reality and fiction, ghosts and memory.” What does the land bear witness to, and how does it tell the story?

4. Still from Transitions (2017), Aurele Ferrier.

Transitions (Aurèle Ferrier, 2017), the next film, transports us to a familiar desert landscape, from where we take on a phantasmagoric journey through dusty suburban towns, ultimately arriving into a dense, urban jungle of a neoliberal utopia; not unlike a quiet morning drive from Mleiha to Downtown - except, you’re the only one in the city.

5. Still, The Unofficial Countryside (Jacob Cartwright & Nick Jordan, 2021).

With The Unofficial Countryside (Jacob Cartwright & Nick Jordan, 2021) we’re introduced to the idea of the edgeland landscape, a liminal holding ground between the urban and rural, where conventional understanding of time, industrial protocol and human-non-human relationships as we know it finds itself suspended. While set in Manchester, we can’t help but start to retroactively think about in-between spaces we encounter on the daily - abandoned construction sites in the city where feral ecosystems gradually make their home; isolated neighbourhoods that turn into winter camping spots, fishing spots under a highway bridge. Sometimes the edgelands aren’t on the edge after all.

Sometimes the edgelands aren’t on the edge after all.

The next film, Blue Honda Civic (Jussi Eerola, 2020, Finland), set in the romantic winter landscape of Finland, strangely felt closest to home. Over the 10 minute stretch, you’re in the driver’s seat and time slows down. We realise, we are what we look at. Living in a region with a stronger car culture than a pedestrian one, our vehicles become an extension of our homes and the changing view of the outside world becomes our universe. While our eyes fixed on the road ahead and our hands on the wheel, our cars still somehow become lunch spots and confessionals; a space of total vulnerability, with our surrounding landscape our silent witness.

We end with Shadegan (Ako Salemi, 2019, Iran), where the distance between the individual and the landscape collapses. As we trace the movement of a 12 year old boy gliding across the water on his boat, we see an unraveling of a symbiotic relationship between man (or boy) and ecology; each alternating in their roles of power.

Concluding with a vibrant, candid conversation between Mezaina and Reisz, we see the value of making and working collaboratively; of brainstorming and “thinking publicly,” as conversations about our city ought to be - open, transparent, tangential - in the best possible way.

On Belonging

The concluding chapter of the Night School programme with Dr. Rana AlMutawa’s book launch brings us to our most immediate here and now. Coffee spots, workplace neighbourhoods, mall parking lots, jogging tracks. Here, we’re asked to look at our own everyday whereabouts and the ways in which we move, speak to people, build connections, work, and engage in economic activity.

6. There You Are 2024, Night School. Rana AlMutawa Book Launch. Facilitated by Todd Reisz. Courtesy of Art Jameel. Photo by Niño Consorte for Seeing Things.

The concluding chapter of the Night School programme with Dr. Rana AlMutawa’s book launch brings us to our most immediate here and now.

Often when we talk about The City or The Urban, there is a tendency to resort to a blind superimposition of canonical Western theories onto our everyday context, or, less fortunately, internalise cliches often perpetuated by Western media. Everyday Life in the Spectacular City tasks us with the civic responsibility of developing a narrative of social dynamics and public life in Dubai that is true to us. How do middle-class citizens and longtime residents of Dubai interact with the city? How do we find meaning in our everyday social interactions? And how do we do this in spite of the ‘fake’ and the ‘superficial’?

7. There You Are 2024, Night School. Rana AlMutawa Book Launch. Facilitated by Todd Reisz. Courtesy of Art Jameel. Photo by Niño Consorte for Seeing Things.

Everyday Life in the Spectacular City tasks us with the civic responsibility of developing a narrative of social dynamics and public life in Dubai that is true to us.

While living room debates and classroom discussions sometimes lead us to believe that we are on one side and the city on the other, the alarm ultimately goes off the next morning to push us out of our homes and into a dynamic city that we become one with. While a glitzy shiny mall may appear superficial, there is a case to be made for the innate human desire to establish a sense of belonging through rhythm and routine: whether that means standing outside your car with a cup of karak and the company of a good friend, or seeking respite from the heat (and free WiFi) at Dubai Mall.

Far from advocating for a romantic reading of the way in which Dubai is structured, what AlMutawa work essentially argues for is respect for the nuances of public life in Dubai, and the acknowledgement of the ways in which we exercise our agency through seemingly minor gestures.

8. Left: A woman sitting in a male-dominated environment at Home Bakery in Dubai Design District. Image from Everyday Life in the Spectacular City. Right: Jumeirah Beach Residence. Image from Everyday Life in the Spectacular City

The three public sessions together told a story of what it means to pay attention to the ways in which we occupy the city, and the ways in which the city moulds us. The programme sets the foundation for much needed discussions in the city that push us to creatively, critically and rigorously develop a language that is sincere in its attempt to narrate the experience of Dubai, its past and future, and its here and now.

Jameel Arts Centre Night School 2024 ‘There You Are’ was a four-week program of seminars and public events about urbanism and history, led by Todd Reisz, held in Dubai in January 2024.

About the writer
Shama Nair is a multidisciplinary curator and writer. Drawn to the intersection between urbanity and visual culture, her work investigates our spatial, temporal, and aesthetic relationship with an ever-expanding neoliberal metropolis. She is currently based in Dubai and works with the Alserkal Arts Foundation.

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🔍 Legal

Meditations on a Season in Transit

Over the past three weeks, marked by a collective welcome to the holy month of Ramadan, we have slowly adjusted to a new rhythm and tempo of the city.

This season’s public programmes introduced us to four thinkers who shared with us four distinct readings of [Dubai].

On Body

Deepak Unnikrishnan opened the series of public programmes with a lecture that prompts a careful consideration of the ways in which our interactions with the city shape us, literally, politically, and spiritually.

On Land

The film programme by artist and film curator Hind Mezaina, a segment without which Night School is incomplete, serves as a tender invitation to audiences to immerse in new worlds and architectures through the celluloid form.

Sometimes the edgelands aren’t on the edge after all.

On Belonging

The concluding chapter of the Night School programme with Dr. Rana AlMutawa’s book launch brings us to our most immediate here and now.

Everyday Life in the Spectacular City tasks us with the civic responsibility of developing a narrative of social dynamics and public life in Dubai that is true to us.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 08 –– SELSummer/Fall 2024

E-08++ Summer/Fall 2024

About ––

Interviews ––

Open Call ––

Newsletter ––

Chronological Archive ––

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB Summer 2020

E-01++ Fall/Winter 2020-21

🎙️GAD Talk Series –– Season 1 2020

E-Issue 02 –– NYC Spring 2021

E-02++ Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 03 ––TYO Fall 2021

E-03++ Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 04 –– IST Spring 2022

E-04++ Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 05 –– VCE Fall 2022

E-05++ Fall/Winter 2022-23

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJSpring 2023

E-Issue 07 –– AUHWinter 2023-24

E-07++ Winter/Spring 2024

🔍 Legal

Meditations on a Season in Transit

Over the past three weeks, marked by a collective welcome to the holy month of Ramadan, we have slowly adjusted to a new rhythm and tempo of the city.

This season’s public programmes introduced us to four thinkers who shared with us four distinct readings of [Dubai].

On Body

Deepak Unnikrishnan opened the series of public programmes with a lecture that prompts a careful consideration of the ways in which our interactions with the city shape us, literally, politically, and spiritually.

On Land

The film programme by artist and film curator Hind Mezaina, a segment without which Night School is incomplete, serves as a tender invitation to audiences to immerse in new worlds and architectures through the celluloid form.

Sometimes the edgelands aren’t on the edge after all.

On Belonging

The concluding chapter of the Night School programme with Dr. Rana AlMutawa’s book launch brings us to our most immediate here and now.

Everyday Life in the Spectacular City tasks us with the civic responsibility of developing a narrative of social dynamics and public life in Dubai that is true to us.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 08 –– SEL
Summer/Fall 2024

E-08++
Summer/Fall 2024

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB
Summer 2020

E-01++
Fall/Winter 2020-21

E-Issue 02 –– NYC
Spring 2021

E-02++
Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 03 ––TYO
Fall 2021

E-03++
Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 04 –– IST
Spring 2022

E-04++
Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 05 –– VCE
Fall 2022

E-05++
Fall/Winter 2022-23

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJ
Spring 2023

E-Issue 07 –– AUH
Winter 2023-24

E-07++
Winter/Spring 2024