Mind the Gap

Mind the Gap was a culmination of different drivers all coming together in one place. It surveyed a landscape of various voids, with the contextual backdrop being the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It was a story told through chapters of gaps – from language to gender, social to economic – and was supported by a series of workshops that provide further knowledge and education opportunities.

The exhibition presented humanity and nature coming together under the pressure of today’s constantly changing political, social and natural climate. Bringing together a diverse and multigenerational group of artists, architects, filmmakers, writers, and outsiders, the exhibition repositioned gaps as openings that intertwined and complemented each other.

The gallery was transformed from a conventional exhibition space to a physical narrative, akin to a research lab of thoughts, feelings and expressions. The presentation and display were stripped back to allow accessibility to all audiences and enable everyone to be inspired and think differently. A section of the gallery was dedicated to documentation and research and acted as a repository of processes and an archive of experiments.

The idea for Mind the Gap was not only to host an exhibition but to select and organise an arts programme, diagnose a need in the community, seek out new and unusual settings for people’s work, forge partnerships, and cede a certain amount of artistic control to gain broader impact.

This approach originated from a need to try and answer the question: How can a curator change their approach to ensure exhibitions have more meaning and increased effect and, in turn, bridge more significant gaps?

Aligned with Tashkeel’s vision, Jack’s curatorial approach was primarily focused on having a more significant impact on audiences by expanding ideas and tactically connecting these with understanding. For the call, he asked the UAE – how can you visualise the intervals between technology and craft, old and young, past and future and mind and matter, and what would these look like?

By taking a pause and observing the space between these periods together, he attempted to enhance the historical, social and cultural fabric of the UAE. He knew that people craved the opportunity to be impactful, but no one had often challenged them to try. Thus, he urged people to observe cultural differences and similarities and question, interrogate and illuminate the cultural gaps in our everyday life.

Whether this was bridging society through food and using memory to create a dialogue or observing regeneration in communities and how they can be articulated through different contemporary art practices, the exhibition attempted to look in-between the ideals of planning and design and the material reality of change in our built, lived, and social environments.

This exhibition was a response; thus, a culmination of the process, rather than just the focal point; an event that brings people together, shares happiness, distributes knowledge and documents research.

This was the first time that Tashkeel invited and collaborated with a guest curator on an open call.