Problems can have silver linings. Refuelling in Abu Dhabi en route to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji to discuss climate change and the energy transition, didn’t go according to plan. Upon take off the captain found that the wing-flaps didn’t function properly, and it was too risky to continue. After jettisoning tonnes of fuel during the flight above the sea to enable a safe landing, we returned to Abu Dhabi at three in the morning. While waiting for the problem to be fixed, I visited the ancient fort in Abu Dhabi, Qasr Al Hosn, and the House of Artisans, and discovered an intriguing dialogue between Abu Dhabi’s desert past and its hyper-modern present.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, Abu Dhabi was a desert village with pearl fishing and trade its life blood. The Qasr Al Hosn fort, built in 1790s, protected its hard-worn riches and became the home of the ruling family and seat of government. Now skyscrapers tower above the past – fossil fuel wealth becoming glass and steel.
Yet the past is not eclipsed. Abu Dhabi’s cultural heritage is embraced not just as a positive origin story but, as the exhibition at House of Artisans shows, as a creative dialogue between the present and past. It is more than the past contrasting the present; it is a real conversation catalysing new art. The form of woven fishing nets and baskets inspired a room-sized interior architecture, here becoming an upside-down dome of a net that houses history.
In the photo below, the net “captures” the bait al-shaar. The woven Bedouin tent, using a traditional form of weaving practiced by Bedouin women in the United Arab Emirates – Al-Sadu. This technique, recognised in UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2011, uses the wool of sheep, camels and goats. Women wove distinctive geometrical patterns that reflect social identity and the environment. Inside the tent, a coffee ceremony is laid out – Bait Al Gahwa – the cultural experience of Gahwa, Arabic coffee (also inscribed in UNESCO’s list). Like the Japanese tea ceremony, there is a protocol and process, sophistication, and hospitality. Arabic coffee is a far lighter concoction than Italian expresso or Turkish coffee, and infused with a choice of different flavours – from cardamom, to saffron, nutmeg, cloves and rosewater. There are training courses to get the culture right.
The giant nets are also used to house a range of other creations too important to slip through the net. The one that struck me as an elegant poetic statement of culture was the collection of robes with sunset red adornment on the necklines and sleeves. Ayesha Hadhir’s “Family Portrait” presents “the role garments play in constructing identities and the connection to the past.” It showcases Talli – embroidery practiced by Emirati women where collars, sleeves and hems of the kandoora and thawb (traditional women’s robes) are beautifully decorated. To me, with the see-through quality, they are the beautiful ghosts of history still speaking to us today.
The past and present combine in the Beige Safeefah Chair, where the cultural tradition of weaving is explicitly evident on the back of the chair, and the seating part, all modern comfort. The past supports the present. But there is more to it than the juxtaposition of time. The designers – Ghaya Bin Mesmar and the Mermelada Studio – were inspired by a traditional Areesh house in the desert, made of palm fronds, which had been blown over by harsh desert winds. Desert architecture becomes a modern chair. A dialogue across the arts.
Afra Al Dhaheri’s “My Grandmother had time for it” is more enigmatic. It presents a personal take on the loss of the tradition of weaving Talli meditatively to pass the time. Here, instead of woven baskets, there are concrete blocks with only the imprint of baskets visible – a type of fossil record of this cultural practice and a lament at a loss of past tradition (and call for its return?).
Abu Dhabi and the wider United Arab Emirates have been changing at an astonishing pace, funded in great part by money from the world’s fossil-fuel addiction, attracting people from across the world to this modern Tower of Babel. This is a nation in change, proud of and remembering its heritage, not as simply part of history, but being integrated into modernity. It stands at a cross-roads in time. The nation was built on pearls, trade and diplomacy, and since the 1960s, on fossil fuels. What of the future?
The United Arab Emirates will host the international Climate COP this November and December, where world leaders will gather to decide how to address the climate crisis – and respond to the fires in Canada, floods in Italy, Japan and China, and oppressive heatwave across Europe and north Africa and middle east, including Abu Dhabi itself where it was too hot to be outside for more than fifteen minutes without seeking an air-conditioned oasis. Emirati leaders, and its designated climate COP president, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, face a challenge and a choice that will affect the Emirati culture and the world’s reality. They have the opportunity and profound responsibility to manage the COP to shepherd in a new tomorrow – one that would build on the free fuel from the sky – solar power – rather than the fossil-fuels under their feet.
The sun is core to the identity of the Emirati people and is a nigh infinite resource for the Emirates, and the world as a whole. It would be a statement of courage and vision to commit to leaving the fossil fuels in the ground and commit to a transition in tradition to embrace the sun. That would also be an impressive contribution to cultural heritage.
