United Arab Emirates

SAWA Museum Studies Programme is a diversity-oriented museum educational programme for young professionals in Arabic-speaking countries and Germany. The programme is divided into two stages: an up to ten days visit to Sharjah and a corresponding same length visit to Berlin.

SAWA Museum Studies Programme is a diversity-oriented museum educational programme for young professionals in Arabic-speaking countries and Germany. The programme is divided into two stages: an up to ten days visit to Sharjah and a corresponding same length visit to Berlin.

Sharjah Art Foundation Production Programme broadens the possibilities for the production of art in the MENASA region by supporting innovation and excellence in artistic practice through the encouragement of experimentation and risk-taking. Placing artists at the core of its mission, the Foundation offers grants and professional support for the realisation of projects selected from an open call.

The Tejumola Olaniyan Creative Writers-in-Residence Fellowship welcomes applications from creative writers including novelists, short story writers, playwrights, poets and scriptwriters related to Africa and the African diaspora. Proposed project can be in Arabic or English (other languages will be considered). The residency invites recipients to Sharjah, UAE for a period of three months to complete their work. The first term for 2022 will begin in September and run until November.

For this special edition of AARP - ASEAN Artists Residency Programme, the ASEAN Secretariat will partner with Maybank Foundation and Sharjah Art Foundation to support two artists to take part in a residency in Sharjah during EXPO 2020 Dubai in January 2022. Applicants must be based in and hold nationality from an ASEAN nation: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi has opened applications for its Performing Arts Production programme. Proposed projects should be original concepts and, in light of the pandemic, can experiment with new forms of performance outside the closed space format. Applicants should be based in the United Arab Emirates or the Arab region, or be from the diaspora. Supported creations will need to be delivered by autumn 2021.

Warehouse421, an arts and design centre in the UAE, has launched the Project Revival Fund, part of the programme that aims to alleviate the disruption affecting the creative production impacted by the challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. Applications are now open, to local and regional emerging and mid-career creatives across multiple disciplines in the MENASA region. Some of the selected projects will have the opportunity to be part of the Warehouse421 programme of exhibitions and community-wide initiatives. Deadline: 30 May 2020.

The third round of Art Jameel Commissions aims to support the production of a digital artwork that will live online, on the Jameel Art Centre website, for audiences to engage with, regardless of where they may be, from autumn/winter 2020 to 2021. The theme of the commission is TIME. It is open to artists of any nationality or age who have links to, and a grasp of, the environmental and cultural nuances of the wider Middle Eastern region. Artists may be from or based in the Middle East, North Africa or Turkey – either living in the region or diaspora – and/or engaged in contributing to the various cultural scenes of the region. Deadline: 10 June 2020.

For the 2020 edition of its annual March Meeting, Sharjah Art Foundation is inviting artists, writers, researchers, curators and art practitioners to submit abstracts for papers relating to the overall theme, Unravelling the Present, or the event’s panel titles: Sharjah Biennial in Retrospect, Art and the Civic Imagination, The Biennial Nation, Sharjah Biennials in the Regional Context, Biennials and Postcoloniality, and Curating in the Age of Crises. Selected contributors are expected to attend MM 2020 and the panel discussions, 21-23 March 2020. Deadline: 23 February 2020.

Alserkal Arts Foundation’s Research Grants are designed to support radical, innovative, and contemporary research that challenges traditional modes of practice in a variety of fields. The grants place an emphasis on interdisciplinary proposals, comparative studies, and societal discourses that link the arts, humanities, and social sciences in the context of Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA). The Foundation itself is located in Dubai.