Last month, Dubai played host to the first British Council Innovation Lab in the Middle East. Held on March 26 and 28, the Culture Shift Lab brought together local UAE talent to come up with new business ideas. The winning groups have been given access to the British Council’s international, regional and local contacts, which they can use to help promote and develop their ideas and products further. The winning participants will also have the opportunity to take part as delegates or speakers in the British Council’s international program to continue to generate wider interest in their developing work.
There were two groups that won the round and interestingly both groups are working on new online platforms to promote art and culture in the UAE. The two platforms are Culturescape and Creative Dubai.
Hussam Mohsineh, software engineer and Mehrad Yaghmai, entrepreneur form the Culturescape team, which proposed a listings website to give small art events in Dubai exposure to a wider audience. The website will enable all cultural events to be listed for free in one place they hope to launch their site in the next few weeks.
Creative Dubai’s team is made up of Alex Teodoresco, co-founder of Street Nights; Hetal Pawani, founder of thejamjar and Artinthecity; Wael Hattar, artist and Mel Songoo, digital media and advertising entrepreneur. They proposed an online brand ‘Creative Dubai’, which through a website and social media will gather key influencers in the art world and give a voice to grassroots artists in the UAE.
We caught up Mehrad Yaghmai, co-creator of Culturescape and Alex Teodoresco, from Creative Dubai to hear what they had to say about their ventures and the arts community in the UAE.
Mehrad Yaghmai, Culturescape
Why did you think of doing this considering there are more popular portals such as TimeOut, What’s On, Dubai Calendar, out there?
These portals don’t cover every event, particularly the smaller events from the grassroots and independent communities. This is where Culturescape is different. We have applied technology to create an open events platform that grows by user submissions and can be curated by the visitor’s preferences. It is a smart, personalized event schedule that is open to all the events – large or small – that are taking place in the city.
Do you plan to distribute this in print?
At this point of time, we have no plans to distribute itin print. The reason for this is that it’s all happening live in real-time – events are updated on an hourly basis due to the algorithm that we have developed and the auto-curated user submission process.
Considering the website allows free listings, will there be a monitoring/filtering system in place and how will this work?
Culturescape has an algorithm that will monitor events that show up on the open platform based on certain criteria and legal parameters such as quality, legality and type of event. This is to protect the legitimacy of the platform and was developed by co-founder, Hussam Mohsineh and myself.
How do you plan to grow the website in the coming months? What do your future plans include?
The algorithm that we have developed will allow the site to organically grow via popular events being talked about in social media. Our goal is to help raise awareness of smaller events in the arts and culture sector so that these events can start to receive the same amount of prominence as the larger events. Our future plans include expanding beyond Dubai to other cities regionally and globally to begin to graph the ‘culturescape’ of humanity.
Since Culturescape’s and Creative Dubai’s ideas are similar in a sense, are there any plans to integrate the two?
We developed Culturescape as an open platform that will allow organizations and movements such as Creative Dubai, to use it to promote their communities to a wider audience. We are developing a system that will enable individuals and groups to use our platform directly on their website/app to reach out to more people. The aim of Culturescape is to empower these sorts of people and these smaller events.
Alex Teodoresco, Creative Dubai
Can you elaborate on what you mean by “giving a voice to grassroots artists in the UAE”?
Small arts organizations and individual artists don’t have the resources to implement expensive communication and promotional campaigns. The industry currently has a fragmented landscape. One area where there is a challenge is with promoting their art. For example, it is a lot easier for a group of a hundred artists to attract a hundred clients than it is for each one of them to attract one client each on their own. This is a good way to use the voice that we want to create for the creative community in Dubai. By having one strong voice, the creative community of Dubai will also be able to have more influence on the decisions that are being made by stakeholders and have an impact on their lives.
How do you plan to attract influencers and ambassadors, and for what purpose?
We are reaching out to people who are already very involved in the arts community and who want to positively influence this industry. They are active members of the community and are proud to support the regional talent. We are giving them a structured and easy way to contribute to changing the way the creative industry sees itself in Dubai and how the rest of the world considers art and culture in Dubai.
Will the website serve as a platform for artists to showcase their work or will it be more blog-styled for them to voice their opinions?
We won’t be offering another blog or viewing platform as there are already plenty out there. We will have a website where the ambassadors and influencers can tell and share their story but our goal is to build a brand around Creative Dubai and raise awareness around this very different side of Dubai. The #mydubai initiative is a very good example of a similar principle and so many people are now using it and associating it another side of Dubai. We want to do the same thing but for the creative sector.
With events like Street Nights and Al Serkal Avenue becoming a more vibrant place, do you think the art scene in Dubai is changing and why?
The art scene is maturing quickly and we are seeing more depth in the industry. We are seeing residents and tourists who want to discover more and not be restricted to high end galleries or exhibitions that take place over a week or once or twice a year. They want to consume art, everywhere, all the time, while roaming through the streets, enjoying good music and good food. This is a very good thing for emerging talent in Dubai because they are being given more opportunities to be discovered.
What can people and the art industry do to encourage more local art?
People need to invest more time to go out there and discover the talent. They need to take a small risk and invest in local artists. It does not take lots of money at the beginning but it creates a virtuous circle and a positive momentum. In addition to this, the arts industry needs to make more effort to reach out to those starting out in a way that is less intimidating. That is why events such as Street Nights and Al Serkal Avenue are great as they break down barriers.
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