When it comes to the UAE, the art scene and the artist scene differ greatly. The majority of the art scene centers around a global consumerist culture heavily revolving around gallery shows of international artists that are then extrapolated into art fairs. There are strides taken by Sharjah Art Foundation and SEAF in programming and exhibitions for artists within the community yet they are still tied to the perception of the nation through an institutional lens rather than one concentrated on the future of artists in the country. This is where Bait 15 circumvents or rather purposely avoids the fuzzy boundary definitions of the nation and the institution, if there is a difference as Hito Steyerl alludes to, by being the first artist run space in Abu Dhabi.
Their location situated in a family home opened up to the community through workshops, talks, and exhibitions as well as their mission confirm their status of space or more so to provide a house in an absence of a space for alternative modes of cultural production. By being “open and flexible to the emerging art scene” and staying true to that, Bait 15 becomes less of a production and more of a network encompassing no beginning or end, but always in the middle of the art scene overspills, which constitute the artists themselves and the dialogue between them. Its lifeline and time become dependent on the community and not on slick displays of artworks. This does not ensure a long life but more importantly ensures a testing ground that embodies the community’s continuous change. It becomes a critical space that extends more than the area of house and into formations of ideas and cultural structures. It becomes more than anything a space within people.
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BAIT 15
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
TEXT: NADIM CHOUFI