Art Jameel commissions sustainability pavilion at Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai for COP28, designed by Adib Dada of architecture practice theOtherDada
- Tarabot: Weaving a Living Forum is a pavilion designed by regenerative consultancy and architecture practice theOtherDada, showcasing innovative materials developed locally
- Tarabotis commissioned by Art Jameel and supported by Abdul Latif Jameel Saudi Arabia
- Telling the story of the UAE’s landscapes through material and design, Tarabotis a pioneering, sustainable and immersive structure hosting talks, presentations and community programmes during COP28 and through April 2024
- Jameel Arts Centre serves as a home during COP and beyond for multidisciplinary members of the local and the international community working across culture and climate change
November 21, 2023 — Art Jameel, an organisation that supports artists and creative communities, announces the launch of Tarabot: Weaving A Living Forum. Imagined as a sustainable, immersive pavilion, Tarabot is designed by Beirut-based regenerative consultancy and architecture practice theOtherDada – founded by architect Adib Dada – and is the cornerstone of broader programming at Jameel Arts Centre. Launching during COP28, Tarabot is set within the Jaddaf Waterfront Sculpture Park, with the architectural intent to host talks, presentations and community programmes throughout and after the global conference. Tarabot is commissioned by Art Jameel and is supported by Abdul Latif Jameel Company Ltd. – Saudi Arabia.
Fady Jameel, Chairman and Founder of Art Jameel, commented: “Tarabotis an excellent way to illustrate our commitment to innovation in addressing timely global issues, serving as a hub for collaboration across the fields of art, architecture and technology. The pavilion stands as a living testament to cutting-edge and dynamic solutions that underpin our ethos across our endeavours.”
Antonia Carver, Director of Art Jameel, said: “Tarabot is a radical space that pioneers exciting new research and architectural materials and also actively engages the community in thinking-in-public about a shared sustainable future. It illustrates in such a dynamic way Art Jameel’s long-term approach to foregrounding the role of the arts in addressing the climate crisis – from international collaborations such as the World Weather Network, to major grants programmes that fund artists to produce thematic work and institutions to decarbonise, such as the current regional Anhar: Culture and Climate Platform, in collaboration with the British Council, and UAE-based Research and Practice Platform, with Dubai Culture, through to our role convening a regional network of arts leaders and ecologists, with whom we are collectively publishing (in time for COP) bilingual sustainability charters and toolkits for the Middle East.”
Tarabot: Weaving a Living Forumacts as an interspecies ecotone – an area where two biological communities meet and integrate – hosting a shared space between humans and other species and organisms, and creating synergies between the natural world and manmade environments. Made of modular and nested cone components crafted from locally sourced, sustainable materials including clay, mycelium, date palm waste and upcycled fabric. The pavilion is a call for the revival of urban spaces, through a focus on the hyperlocal and the creation of circular ecological support systems within new and existing material structures. Its design incorporates four pillars that speak to its concept, construction and de-installation: Soil, Water, Plants, and Energy. After de-installation, the modular constituents of Tarabot: Weaving a Living Forum will be repurposed for domestic planting on land with the structure taking on new life as underwater habitat for coral and fish, linking life on land to life underwater.
Adib Dada, architect and founder of theOtherDada, said: “Tarabot is our first project that meaningfully bridges our work of building habitats for humans with building habitats for other organisms. By re-integrating our place within nature, we are able to offer a shared forum for humans and other organisms to thrive in the city. Tarabot– which means ‘to weave together’, offers a shared space for humans and other organisms to come together as interdependent equals, sharing food, water and habitat.”
Also featured within Tarabotis a series of artworks created by Dubai-based, multidisciplinary artist Solimar Miller in response to the impact of urbanisation on the environment, Miller’s artwork captures plant and animal species native to the UAE, drawing attention to the importance of preserving indigenous biodiversity and encouraging broader conversations around climate change. Tarabothosts a series of planting workshops during the UAE’s annual sustainability festival Down to Earth(November 25), leading up to the launch.
Tarabot: Weaving a Living Forum is commissioned by Art Jameel and supported by Abdul Latif Jameel Company Ltd. – Saudi Arabia. This collaboration is part of Art Jameel’s longstanding commitment to addressing the climate crisis and advocating for sustainability in the arts. Read our Sustainability Charter here.
Tarabot: Weaving Living Forum was realised with the generous support of Unilux Lighting (Lebanon) and Desert Board (U.A.E).
Notes to Editors
Sustainability at Art Jameel
Sustainability and addressing the climate crisis is a pillar within Art Jameel’s mandate, addressed through taking actions to decarbonise our buildings and ways of working; engaging the public through exhibitions and public programmes; and pioneering original research grounded in the Global South. Efforts to reduce our emissions and waste footprints range from monitoring, understanding and reducing resources used through operating and maintaining our buildings and parks to how exhibitions are curated and put together and how we care for artworks.
Art Jameel embraces the role of the arts in brokering a conversation with the public, through exhibitions and commissions (such as ‘Staple: What’s on your plate?’, December 2021- April 2022, Hayy Arts, Hayy Jameel, and ‘An Ocean in Every Drop’, September 2022 – April 2023, Jameel Arts Centre), public and community programmes (Down to Earth, the UAE’s annual Green Gathering in Dubai, and the Farmers Market at Hayy Jameel, Jeddah), conferences and symposia (Shifting Earth andMaterial Matters) andArtist’s Garden, a biennial commissions programme for artists to create, cultivate and experiment. Art Jameel also runs pioneering, collaborative initiatives aimed at producing original research out of the Gulf and across the Global South through residencies and fellowships, includingArt Jameel Commissions: Arts Writing and Research awarded to Nadia Christidi on the future of water, and theCollection Care Fellowship, addressing the particular challenges and opportunities associated with managing, conserving and caring for institutional art collections across West Asia, South Asia and Africa.
Jameel Arts Centre will serve as a hub for multidisciplinary practitioners working across culture and climate change during COP28.
About Art Jameel
Art Jameel supports artists and creative communities. Founded and supported by the Jameel family philanthropies, the independent organisation is headquartered in Saudi Arabia and the UAE and works globally. Art Jameel’s programmes – across exhibitions, commissions, research, learning and community-building – are grounded in a dynamic understanding of the arts as fundamental to life and accessible to all.
Art Jameel’s two institutions – Hayy Jameel, a dedicated complex for the arts and creativity in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Jameel Arts Centre, an innovative institution for contemporary art and ideas in Dubai, UAE – are complemented by digital initiatives plus collaborations with major institutional partners and a network of practitioners across the world.
About Jameel Arts Centre
One of the first contemporary arts institutions in Dubai, Jameel Arts Centre presents curated solo and group exhibitions, drawn both from the Art Jameel Collection and through regional and international collaborations.
The Centre is a 10,000-square metre, three-storey, multi-disciplinary space designed by UK-based practice Serie Architects. The building is punctuated by seven gardens, designed by landscape architect Anouk Vogel, which reflect local and global desert biomes. Sitting alongside is the Jaddaf Waterfront Sculpture Park, designed by waiwai, and a collaboration between Art Jameel and Dubai Holding.
Located by the creek in Dubai’s Jaddaf Waterfront neighbourhood, the Jemeel’s galleries are complemented by the Jameel Library, an open-access research centre dedicated to artists and cultural movements in the Gulf states and beyond. The Jameel also includes project and commissions spaces, a writer’s studio, an artisan seasonal dining concept ‘Teible’and the Art Jameel Shop.
About theOtherDada
theOtherDada is a Beirut-based regenerative consultancy and architecture practice founded by Adib Dada, working with nature to build shared habitats for humans and other organisms to thrive. They are Lebanon’s first BCorp certified company built on the firm belief that businesses have the responsibility and opportunity to action meaningful, positive impact. tOD takes an alternative approach to sustainability, through the deep consideration of context and medium of their work- fostering new relationships between climate, landscape, and inhabitants. Their research in biomimicry enables a conscious connection to the natural ecosystems of sites to build interspecies habitats.