City Eastwest: a fiction of global urban culture and communities

By Janet Bellotto and Adina Hempel

Today cities are globally connected by trade, transportation and migration, becoming hubs for exchange of knowledge, culture and heritage. Media and digital technologies have enhanced such connections and created a so-called ‘media presence,’ alluding to place specificity and aiming to construct authenticity. Much like Los Angeles which according to Norman M. Klein builds on a history of ‘continuously reinterpreting itself’, Dubai’s continuous projection of the cities’ identity into the future and the articulation of the distant past shares a common identity of change and experimentation. Dubai and Los Angeles are located at the opposite ends in the ‘East’ and the ‘West,’ they are incubators for creative industries and future development and share a strong media identity. This project documents the current perceived versus remembered urban experiences and from that a newly formed urban imaginary. City EastWest further explores the notion of authenticity and place specificity and how such constructs are formed and influenced through media representation versus personal experiences and develop a multilayered collective urban memory and identity of a place opposed to a singular narrative. Through social media, air travel and international trade, cities are more than ever linked and united as one giant urban network and arguably even as one giant global city. Story telling not only is a reminder of past traditions such as oral history culture in the UAE, but also has impacted the development of industries such as script writing for film industries as it is in Los Angeles. Using storytelling as means to read the built environment and juxtaposing this with archival material and site observation, the project aims to develop a fictional history of the future City EastWest.

www.cityeastwest.com

Acknowledgements:

This project would not have been possible without the help of so many individuals throughout the five years, organized in alphabeitical order: Koan Jeff Baysa, Amanda Beech, Arianna Cancian, Maristella Casciato, Dunya Hussein Dowais, Fred Eversley, Joseph Fansher, Bruce Ferguson, Michelle Carole Gay, Corina Ghaznavi, Liz Gordon (Loft at Liz’s), David Howarth, Erkki Huhtamo, Noman M. Klein, Nadine Khalil, Joe Lewis, Maryam Al Mannae, Jane Mi, MiM Gallery, Hetal Pawani (thejamjar), Guillermo Alberto Marín Pérez, Ann-Maree Reaney, Zainab Ashoor Ahmed Saeed, Maram AlSharani, Sundos AlSheebani, Brett Steele, Shamsa Al Suwaidi, Woodman Taylor, Marcus Tolledo, Leila Anna Wahba (A+D Museum), Emma Warbuton and Barry Veerkamp have tirelessly supported and contributed in various capacities to the project.


Photos

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Researcher Bio

Janet Bellotto is an artist, writer, and educator from Toronto and a Professor in Visual Arts of the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises, Zayed University, Dubai, where she also served in a variety of leadership roles. Bellotto is an initiator in various collaborations where she engages in projects and curates exhibitions that promote cultural exchange—most recently at the American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC. Artistic Director for the 2014 International Symposium on Electronic Art hosted in Dubai, she currently is editor for Tribe, which publishes on photography from the Arab world. Inspired by narratives and locations, water is a constant theme in her installation practice while examining the ever-changing world that she travels. In her most recent work, she focuses on islands—their isolation and vulnerability. Bellotto’s work has been exhibited in a variety of collective, group, and solo exhibitions internationally.

Adina Hempel is a registered architect, urban researcher and Associate Professor at the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises, Zayed University in Dubai, UAE. She has conducted extensive research on the architectural and urban history of the UAE and was part of the curatorial team of the National Pavilion of the UAE at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. She served as Head of Research for the Shindagha Museum phase 1 pavilions in Dubai and has worked with the UAE Ministry of Culture and Youth on a variety of UAE Architecture related projects and currently is a member of the Technical Committee for Modern Heritage of the UAE. Adina Hempel studied Architecture at the Technical University of Dresden, Urban Studies at Columbia University in New York and Digital Film Making at New York Film Academy in New York and is currently pursuing a PhD in Architecture at the University of Stuttgart.

Project Collaborators

Koan Jeff Baysa - Curator Los Angeles

Kóan Jeff Baysa is a medical doctor and a contemporary art curator. He was born and raised in Hawai’i, and divides his time between Honolulu, New York, and Los Angeles. His current practice bridges medical culture and social sculpture, and includes clinical research in the neuroscience of memory and olfaction, human sensory perception and misperception, neurodiversity, and the cultural constructs of health, disease, and Aesthetics. Dr. Baysa is a member of the Association of International Art Critics (AICA) and an alumnus of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program (ISP). His positions include Chief Medical Officer-Medical Avatar; Co-founder-Joshua Treenial; Senior Founder-Honolulu Biennial; Director-iBiennale; Program Board Advisor-Art Omi; Cultural Advisor-World Council of Peoples for the United Nations; Alumnus-AdvisoryCommittee of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics; Cultural Agent-Curators Network; International Advisor-Dag Hammarskjold Plaza; Advisory Board, Kaus Australis, Rotterdam. A Ford Foundation grantee asked to survey contemporary art in Vietnam, he has curated exhibitions in China, Japan, Chile, Croatia, Mexico, Korea, Austria, Canada, Ireland, England, Ukraine, Holland, United Arab Emirates, and throughout the US.

David Howarth - Designer
David Howarth is the Associate Dean/Associate Professor of Graphic Design in the College of Arts & Creative Enterprises at Zayed University (UAE). He earned an MA in Visual Communication from the University of Salford and has 25+ years of experience, working within industry for large Design Agencies in the UK and working as Founder/Managing Director of his own company. David has a keen interest in all design related issues with a passion for branding, typography and publication design. His recent research focuses on the environment, the evolution of man and his material wealth, pollution and its impact on our planet and the consequences this has on nature. Through this path he has established a letterpress studio within the Graphic Design program – the first in a higher education institution in the UAE. He has published on “What effect technology has had on a Graphic Designers thought process over the last 25 years.” And how introducing old technology into a teaching environment can further enhance a student’s creative experience.