Library Circles highlight research, talks and experimental interventions by UAE practitioners in the Jameel Library and Jameel Arts Centre. Alternative research methodologies and representations with a focus on ‘thinking in public’ are studied in the programme.
The research of Salma Serry, a food researcher, writer and filmmaker, is now presented at Jameel Library until August 1st, 2022. The food researcher investigates food as a junction of history, knowledge, politics, economies, senses and semantics. These elements are connected and produced and reproduced constantly. Salma Serry analyzes the menus of different food places which cater to migrant communities in the UAE.
In Salma Serry’s research, there are food lists collected from memory, cookbooks, television, and the press, starting from the late 1960s until the 1990s. The researcher gathers material which documents unofficial heritage of different migrant communities. Expatriates, foreigners, residents, and non-citizens are always moving in and out of this city.
Also, there will also be a workshop led by Salma Serry and a talk with Salma Serry and Daniel L Newman, the author of The Sultan’s Feast.
Salma Serry was recently awarded the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) and Arab Council for Social Sciences (ACSS) joint grant for her ongoing project that documents a 100 years of culinary ephemera from SWANA’s archives. She is the founder of @Sufra_Kitchen, a social media platform that re-approaches the food history and culture of the region.
In addition, there is also a connection between Salma’s research and Hayy Arts’ opening group exhibition, Staple: What’s on Your plate?, which explores what we eat and the link of food with memory, ecology and place.
Jameel Library is an open modern arts research centre devoted to cultural histories of the Gulf and its neighbouring regions. It can be found in the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai. The increasing multimedia library collection features books, journals, catalogues, theses, artists’ files and ephemera in both English and Arabic.
To get more information, please visit the official webpage of the event.
You may be also interested in looking at the installation called Desert is a Forest.
