New cohort of artists for capacity-building programs – Announcements

421 Arts Campus in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates announces artists selected for the 2024–25 capacity-building programs. The programs, which include the Artistic Development Program and the Residency Program, will give seven artists the opportunity to work on major projects that explore contemporary and critical issues related to the region.  

The seven selected artists are Alla Abdunabi, Ana Escobar, and Juma Alhaj, part of the 2025 Artistic Development Program; and Shama Al Hamed, Adrian Pepe, Yousif Abdulsaid, and Farah Soltani, who will be artists-in-residence from July to December 2024. 

The programs support artists and creative practitioners who have a sustained artistic practice or interest in creative disciplines. Often involving juries made up of locally and regionally based arts professionals, as well as pedagogical partners that contribute to the curricula, the capacity building programs function as a launching pad for the career development of young and emerging practitioners. Those programs are open to participation of students, recent graduates and early-career practitioners interested in visual arts, design and architecture, film, new media, literary arts and performance.

The artists selected to take part in the 421 Artistic Development Program 2024 are Alla Abdunabi, Ana Escobar, and Juma Alhaj.

The 421 Artistic Development Program is designed to support rigorous practice in early to mid-career UAE-based artists. The program will support ambitious project proposals from conceptual development, realization, and production of new bodies of work, until their final solo exhibitions at the 421 spaces. The artists will receive sustained guidance from art educators, curators, interlocutors and their peers through critique and discussion, alongside a 10,000 AED participation grant. 

Alla Abdunabi’s practice is realized through sculpture and installation. Central to Abdunabi’s artistic methodology is the production of fragments, assembled to construct a sense of wholeness, whether rooted in factual events or products of the imagination.

Ana Escobar is a cross-disciplinary creative practitioner with a rich background in fashion, textiles, and metalsmithing. Escobar spent over a decade honing her skills through studio practice and freelance projects in fashion, trend forecasting and other crafts.

Juma Alhaj has a background in visual communication and rhetoric, and has showcased his work in exhibitions such as Unofficial Histories at Art of Living on Jubail Island, Abu Dhabi (2024), and The Return at Alserkal Avenue, Dubai (2023).

The artists selected to be part of the second cohort of the 421 Residency Program 2024 are Adrian Pepe, Shama Al Hamed, Yousif Abdulsaid, and Farah Soltani (New York University Abu Dhabi fellow).

The residents were selected through an annual open call that ran from November 2023 to January 2024. The program supports artists based in the UAE and across the region, offering them special grants, financial resources, and professional support towards the development of a milestone project in their practice.

Adrian Pepe is a fiber artist based in Beirut. Pepe’s artistic practice is an ongoing investigation into material and process. His work interweaves nature and culture to present objects as tools to enable an open discourse on materiality, our morphing cultural landscape and present condition. 

Yousif Abdulsaid is a creative director and multidisciplinary artist based in Kuwait. After more than a decade of articulating works in the fashion and creative industries, Abdulsaid’s artistic practice travels between genres, encompassing architecture, interior design, product design, fashion, photography, and floristry to be cross-pollinated on every project.

Shama Al Hamed is an artist based in Abu Dhabi. Using painting as a primary medium, Al Hamed’s  artistic practice often investigates the self-portrait and its connections to narrative while exploring the dreamlike subconscious.

Farah Soltani is an artist based in Abu Dhabi. Soltani works across various media, including sculpture, painting, video, text, and installation. Her practice de-familiarizes the mundane, experimenting materially with ordinary objects subjects to elevate them beyond their familiar functions.

421 also invites artists to apply now for the 2025 cycles of the Artistic Research Grant and Residency Program. More information is available on the 421 website.