The Dubai Authority for Culture and Arts has just announced that it was going to open a Fashion & Design district in the most populous city of the seven United Arab Emirates and that they were hoping to attract foreign artists in another planned Arts neighbourhood through a change of the legislation.
After managing to get a branch of the Paris Louvre Museum and of New York's Guggenheim Museum to open on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, capital of the U.A.E for example, this is one of the many attempt by Dubai Authorities to put their energy-rich Gulf Arab State on the world's artistic map through the staging of major exhibitions and festivals and the opening of big museums.
The head of projects and events department at Dubai's Authority for Culture and Arts Mishal al-Gergawi just revealed at the Reuters Global Luxury Summit in Dubai that he had been handed a billion dollar budget to develop infrastructures for artists and develop culture in the city.
Dubai Culture ordered this whole district dedicated to high-end design, fashion and gastronomy and indicated they would modify the law to grant residency rights to foreign artists even if they only have part-time or non-profit work which is not possible right now!
Gergawi said : "We want to bring (works) from international museums who have universal collections of pre-historic times, contemporary, impressionist, antiquities, Islamic, and take them out of their comfortable space,"
In this vein, they have in mind to open a neighboroud of galleries and affordable housing similar to London's Spitafields market, and already signed agreements with many German museums : those in Dresden, Munich and Berlin State Museums to transfer exhibits.
Since that many expatriates settled in Dubai over the past 6 years thanks to the economic high oil prices-induced boom the emirate experienced and looking for all-year-long sun and that they are more likely to get involved in arts and fashion for traditional and cultural reasons than locals, many think that the Dubai Authorities are ahead of the curve.
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