Ammar told AGSI that as a boy he dreamed of participating in the television shows and cartoons that he watched – often memorizing and recreating the scenes he saw from “Duck Tales,” Japanese anime (dubbed in Arabic), “The Muppets,” “Sesame Street,” and other shows. He imagined himself as a cartoon character or one of the puppeteers featured on “The Muppets.” He said he spent hours thinking about “the mechanism of how they’d get the mouth moving, hand gestures and a million questions.” He idolized Mel Blanc, the American actor who was the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and other Looney Tunes characters. Ammar’s passions and interests, however, did not translate well into his schoolwork because, as he explained to AGSI, he “loved learning but was uncomfortable within the confines of a traditional classroom.” His unease with conventional learning was so great, he added, that he convinced his parents to let him study “for a two-year diploma to be a mechanic and skip college” since he “liked to work with his hands.” His uncle suggested that he check out architecture school – a profession Ammar reasoned would allow him to express his creativity in a manner that would be accepted by his parents and society.

Those hopes went unfulfilled, and, in 2013, after 11 years working as an architect, Ammar quit his day job and focused on his childhood dream of working in entertainment. He watched every video tutorial he could find on puppeteering, especially those featuring Jim Henson, the co-founder of “The Muppets” and a central figure in “Sesame Street.” He traveled to the United States, where he had attended graduate school, to get professional training as a puppeteer. In San Francisco, in just 10 days he completed a two-month course on puppet building and designing and puppeteering for TV. His teacher, veteran puppeteer Michael Earl, who worked on “The Muppets” in the 1970s, compared his work to a young Jim Henson’s.

(Courtesy of Ammar Alsabban)

In Jeddah, Ammar crafted his own version of “The Muppets” and “Sesame Street.” He built puppets, including Afroot, a Yeti whom Ammar imagined had immigrated to Jeddah with his family from the Himalayas. He wrote scripts for his puppets, posted YouTube videos of his puppet shows, and sought work with hospitals, schools, and other community partners. Although he promoted a vision of edutainment analogous to what he had watched on TV – family friendly, educational, and inclusive – the initial reception was not promising. He said Saudis were “not into puppetry” at that time. It was still largely an unpopular genre of art in the kingdom, forcing him to create a market for his work from scratch. His first paid performance was at a birthday party. Still, Ammar earned around 280,000 Saudi riyals ($75,000) during the first eight months of his new career, a substantial sum of money at the time for this type of performing arts in the kingdom.

(Courtesy of Ammar Alsabban)

At the same time, Ammar’s videos, especially the ones featuring Afroot, caught fire on social media, helping him secure a job in 2015 with Bidaya Media in Abu Dhabi. There, he joined the reboot of “Iftah Ya Simsim,” the Arabic version of “Sesame Street” that was first broadcast from 1979-90 and that Ammar had watched as a child. As part of his training for the new position, he traveled to New York to study under Martin Robinson, one of the most gifted puppeteers on “Sesame Street.” Ammar earned the nickname “lefty” in New York from the “Sesame Street” puppet builders because he was the first left-handed puppeteer to use the Cookie Monster puppet. On “Iftah Ya Simsim,” Ammar served as the creative director, wrote scripts for six of the 100 episodes, and voiced multiple characters, including Gagur (Grover) and Ka’aki (Cookie Monster). This was challenging work: It required him to produce clear, positive, and educational messages in properly accented Arabic suitable for the entire Arab world. The shows also had to be humorous and retain the attention of the young audience. But the activities his parents once feared were useless were finally paying off. “Growing up watching ‘The Muppets’ and ‘Sesame Street’ religiously,” he observed in 2018, “gave me the advantage that I have now.” A year later he told Arab News that he was living his “childhood dream.”

(Courtesy of Ammar Alsabban)

However, the stress of working on “Iftah Ya Simsim” and living far from his family in Jeddah convinced Ammar not to renew his contract with Bidaya Media in 2019 and to return home to focus on freelance work in the kingdom. Five years earlier, he and a group of friends had pioneered “Mstdfr,” one of the first podcasts in Saudi Arabia. The show’s title came from dafoor, an Arabic word meaning something between a “nerd” and a “geek,” speaking to its offbeat approach and unique outlook. While devising a format for how to package “Mstdfr” and how it should sound to listeners, Ammar remembered listening to “Car Talk” – an American call-in radio program broadcast in Saudi Arabia by the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah. The show, which aired from 1977 to 2012, featured Tom and Ray Magliozzi, Italian American brothers who owned an auto repair shop in a suburb of Boston and dispensed advice to listeners about how to fix their cars. The core of the show was the banter between the Magliozzi brothers. On each episode, they made fun of one another and told jokes and humorous stories while interacting with listeners.

It was a perfect model for Ammar because “Car Talk” was an adult version of the edutainment that he had successfully produced for children using puppets. On “Mstdfr,” he and his partner and co-founder Rami Taibah borrowed the U.S. show’s formula but gave it a Saudi accent. Rather than advising their listeners about car repairs, they focused on Saudi Arabia and topics they and other young Saudis found interesting in their daily lives. They spoke to their audience in “Arablish,” a blend of English and Arabic, which many of their listeners also used – a choice that, like the show’s name, gave them authenticity. Ammar and his friends also used music and jokes, just as Tom and Ray Magliozzi did on “Car Talk,” to fill in gaps in conversation. By 2016, “Mstdfr” was one of the most popular podcasts in Saudi Arabia, with fans calling themselves “Mstdfri.”

As his first podcast began to take off, Ammar was already working on “Kartoon Karton,” a podcast he developed with Abdullah Rafaah. The two men, who worked together on “Iftah Ya Simsim” and shared an apartment in Abu Dhabi, spent hours discussing the storylines, characters, and production of their favorite cartoons. In 2017, they moved their conversations to a podcast, which found a passionate audience in Saudi Arabia and among the thousands of Saudis and other Gulf nationals living abroad. Those listeners became a tight-knit community, adopting the name “Karateen” (the Arabic plural of cartoon) and hosting their own online and in-person “Kartoon Karton” listening parties. They pressed Ammar and Abdullah to hold a live recording, and on the second anniversary of the show the two men organized an in-person event in Jeddah that was attended by more than a hundred people.

During the live recording of “Kartoon Karton,” fans were moved to find other people who, like Ammar, might be socially awkward and who shared his and Abdullah’s niche interest in cartoons. Many became close friends. At later events, Ammar heard stories about how the podcast had positively shaped the lives of listeners, including some who had been on the verge of suicide but, through the show, realized that they were not alone in the world and that there were others like them. “One of the biggest reasons for why we do what we do,” Ammar explained in an interview in 2023 “is that we don’t want people to feel lonely.”

By that time, Ammar’s various creative enterprises had taken off. He co-founded a podcast network with over 13 weekly podcasts, was selected as part of the inaugural cohort of the MiSK 2030 Leaders Program, wrote children’s stories, and forged a new partnership with U.S. creatives. On a panel at the Jeddah Book Fair in 2021, he befriended Ben Earl – a veteran cartoonist for Marvel, who had worked on “Deadly Neighborhood Spider-Man” and “Werewolf by Night.” Ammar and Ben agreed that there was an underserved global market for stories geared to children and young adults rooted in the culture and mythology of the Middle East. They thought a company serving this market with “Marvel-like content with a Middle-East flavor” could help to bridge gaps between societies, prompting them to form WeirdBunch Entertainment. Today, the studio has Saudi and U.S. funding and offices in Jeddah, New York, and Los Angeles. Its senior officers are Ammar and Ben, along with Keith Fay, who directed original series for the Cartoon Network from 2013 to 2022, and Abdullah Alsabban, Ammar’s older brother, who has held leadership positions in senior Saudi companies, such as Panda, one of the country’s most important supermarket chains.

(Courtesy of Ammar Alsabban)

Ammar wrote the inaugural project for the studio, “The Legend of Soloman,” the first Saudi family superhero story. Set in the kingdom in 2050, it follows Soloman, a rebellious 14 year old with a tense relationship with his father. He is a geologist and traditionalist who wants his son to master a 400-page manual before using his superhero powers to benefit society. Soloman has other ideas, and father and son must learn to work together to battle a dark curse. WeirdBunch Entertainment has already created a comic book version of “Legend of Soloman” in Arabic as well as a playable demo for a mobile game and intends to animate it as well, with versions available in English and Arabic. In the future, Ammar hopes the company will expand to telling stories not only from the Middle East but also from South Africa and other countries.

This follows the path of other Saudi creatives, such as Malik Nejer, the director of the Saudi animated series “Masameer,” whose most recent film, “Masameer Junior,” featured Ammar as a voice actor. Malik and his team have also partnered with Chinese and Saudi animators to bring “Ne Zha 2,” a blockbuster animated fantasy action-adventure film series, to Middle East screens in summer 2025. Because many Arab viewers are not familiar with Chinese mythology, Malik explained to Xinhua, he “matched each on-screen tribe with a distinct Arabic dialect” and searched for cultural parallels when concepts had no exact equivalent in the Arab world. Ultimately, the film that viewers will see in Arab theaters is, in Malik’s words, “Ne Zha 2” but “with a Saudi accent.”

These types of cross-cultural partnerships closely echo the principles that Ammar has promoted in his work along with how he, Malik, and other Saudi creatives define themselves and their place in the world today. Many of these Saudis imagine their world and express themselves in their art and other aspects of their life through collage. Ammar’s social media avatar, in which he pulls away his thobe to reveal a blue shirt imprinted with the red letter “S,” is in homage to the iconic image of Superman transforming from his alter ego Clark Kent into a superhero. “Don’t follow your passions,” Ammar told AGSI. “Instead, identify your purpose and utilize your passions to help you achieve it.” Ammar has done so with great passion for over a decade and emerged as one of Saudi Arabia’s most dynamic creative actors.

The post Ammar Alsabban: Superman With a Saudi Accent appeared first on AGSI.

Through Rahina, Fatma crafts jewelry that honors the spiritual and symbolic significance of traditional Omani pieces, transforming them into wearable narratives that connect past and present. Fatma’s practice is also a personal journey of reclaiming identity and belonging, as she navigates her mixed Omani and Filipino heritage to create art that is both intimate and communal.

 AGSIW spoke to Fatma to learn more about her personal background, the importance of cultural preservation, and how her heritage has informed her artistic practice.

 AGSIW: What has been your personal journey, and how did you become interested in jewelry design?

Fatma: I always had a deep connection with creativity. From making movies to writing stories and assembling plastic jewelry from DIY kits, creativity and being outdoors were a huge part of my childhood. Yet, as I grew up, I began to view creativity as something frivolous and lacking practical value in the adult world.

I initially followed the conventional path: education, a university degree in business and marketing in London, then a job back home in Oman. Seven years passed by, and I found myself yearning for a career with purpose, seeking what I termed a “soul” business, though unsure what form it should take.

Not long after, I quit my job and found myself in Zanzibar, a place that became a cocoon for shedding old norms and embracing new possibilities. It was there that I met Maria, a nomadic Maasai woman whose daily ritual of crafting jewelry captivated me.

She sat on a beach, stringing together intricate, colorful pieces that reflected her heritage and artistry. I found myself buying anklets and observing her until she eventually started to teach me her beaded jewelry techniques.

In Maria’s teachings, I unearthed memories of my mother’s preparation ritual of adornment for special occasions: donning a family heirloom passed onto her – my Dhofari grandmother’s heritage piece called the Rahina necklace – with coral beads and gold coins strung on a golden chain.

The timing was fortuitous. Covid-19 enveloped the world and confined me to quarantine. In my room, I found solace in the tools left behind by my mother, herself a former jewelry artisan. In this space of solitude and reflection, my journey into jewelry design began.

Maria, a jewelry artisan, in Zanzibar. (Photo courtesy of Fatma al-Najjar)

AGSIW: As someone with mixed Omani, Dhofari, and Filipino heritage, how do you navigate the complexities of identity and belonging within Omani society?

Fatma: I initially learned to mold myself to fit my environment, hoping that I would go by unscathed and unnoticed. It was easier to be invisible. That way, I wouldn’t have to define or explain myself to anyone.

I felt caught between polar opposites: Omani and Filipina, conservative and liberal, right and wrong. I grappled with a sense of needing to choose, to define myself within distinct boundaries. I leaned toward choosing my Arab/Dhofari/Omani side, which sometimes meant setting aside my Filipina roots.

I faced internal and external questioning about what truly constitutes an Arab. Does my father’s first language, Shehri (also known as Jabbali), disqualify him as an Arab? Am I really Dhofari if I do not live among the people for more than three months a year? What if I don’t cover my face and subscribe to some of the cultural practices?

It was only well into my adult life that I came to realize that identity is not static: It is fluid and multifaceted. My identity is shaped by my experiences, blended heritage, values, and the communities I belong to.

I’ve come to embrace my mixed heritage, though I still identify more closely with my Dhofari side. In Dhofar, I feel that belonging is earned through the purity of your bloodline, physical presence, doting on the community, and blending in with everyone else. It’s a place where change is met with caution, and being different puts you at risk of being an outsider, even if you share the same blood and tribe. In contrast, the Filipino community, known for its openness and diasporic nature, offers a more fluid sense of identity and belonging.

My research serves as a lifeline that connects me to my people and land, yet my appearance and distance, being based in Muscat, sometimes evoke a sense of being an outsider appropriating my own Dhofari heritage. I tread carefully, mindful of how I present myself and share my insights, seeking always to honor and bridge the complexities of my identity.

Fatma draping a cloth over a frankincense tree in Dhofar, Oman. (Photo courtesy of Jalel Felemban)

AGSIW: What is the significance of the Jabbali culture in Dhofar and its importance to Oman’s cultural landscape?

Fatma: As a seafaring nation, Oman has a long history of engaging with diverse cultures. Each region within Oman also boasts distinct dialects, dress, cuisine, traditions, and customs. There are more than nine languages spoken across various local ethnic and regional communities, and, within my own circles, I have been exposed to seven of them.

Shehri, an indigenous language of the southern part of Oman, holds particular importance to me. It is my father and grandmother’s first language. Shehri doesn’t have a written form and has been preserved orally through generations. As Arabic becomes more widely used, the number of fluent Shehri speakers is dwindling. It’s a unique language and has letters that are not part of any other alphabet or phonetics I have heard. It’s tough for new speakers. I started learning in February 2024 and am struggling to pronounce some of the letters!

The Jabbali culture embodies an intimate connection with the land. The land connects the people to their ancestors, provides medicine, and is a vital source of sustenance for both them and their free-range animals (mainly camels, goats, and cows). It’s more than just real estate or a source of income; they are notoriously protective of it. Nonetheless, you’ll still find a chalet or two in the mountains available for tourists to rent.

Efforts to document and revitalize the language are essential in ensuring the Jabbali culture’s survival and passing it on to future generations. Information, stories, teachings, wisdom, and poetry were transferred through oral tradition. Keeping the integrity of the language alive will help us unlock pre-colonial and indigenous teachings that are unique to us and our region.

AGSIW: You describe Rahina as an ode to your Dhofari heritage. How do you incorporate elements of Dhofari culture into your jewelry designs, and what message do you hope to convey through your creations?

Fatma: One thing that fascinates me about Omani jewelry is that each piece is treated as an animate object. Each piece has its own name, purpose, and story.

The “Aissaba” is a headpiece worn during weddings by single first-degree cousins or siblings of the groom. It makes these girls easy to spot. I have my own piece that my mother purchased for me, and I loved taking it out and wearing it. I also loved sharing it with family members on the occasions I could not attend and wear it myself.

This connection with the piece you wear is what I want to bring back through Rahina as an alternative to fast fashion – something that is more sentimental and meaningful, an item to cherish rather than an item to hoard.

AGSIW: What efforts are currently underway to preserve and celebrate the Jabbali culture in Dhofar?

Fatma: The publication of the first Shehri dictionary in 2014, featuring a new alphabet that accommodates sounds absent in the Arabic script, is an important step in preserving the language.

Various papers and books have been written on topics ranging from cave drawings and children’s games to political history, language, rituals, and folklore. Notable among these publications is a guide on Dhofari plants. The text details their scientific attributes and cultural significance, including local uses and the Shehri name for each plant.

Community-driven tourism initiatives like Ghudu involve locals in activities that showcase their traditions. The restoration of historic homes for tourism, such as Koofan House, also promotes cultural exchange. Similarly, Dar Abdulaziz a     l-     Rowas, a private residence, exemplifies architectural preservation by blending Islamic and Dhofari styles. Museums across Oman are increasingly highlighting local artifacts, enriching public understanding and appreciation of Dhofari traditions.

AGSIW: Can you share any memorable experiences or interactions you’ve had while working on reviving Dhofari heritage through your jewelry designs?

Fatma: During Ramadan of 2024, I volunteered to raise funds for Gaza by selling books and struck up a conversation with a woman helping me. She recognized me from my business account and asked about my involvement with the British Museum.

She shared a touching story: Her British aunt, a devoted admirer of Omani culture and silver, made a special trip to London to celebrate her 70th birthday by visiting the 2023 exhibition “Making Their Mark: Women Silversmiths From Oman,” which featured my work.

She said she had a great time and enjoyed the exhibit. Despite the British Museum’s vast number of visitors each year, this personal anecdote made me feel deeply valued and understood. It reminded me of the profound reason why I create – for individuals like her.

These exchanges remind me of how my jewelry, along with every creation I bring to life, is a heartfelt tribute to my ancestors and the profound conversations I hold with them. Despite lacking a formal design background and being relatively new to this journey, each time I craft a piece or shape the identity of the brand, I am driven by an innate, undeniable feeling. It is as if I am tapping into a space where ancestral memories surface, inviting me to explore and express them anew.

The post Rahina: A Jeweler’s Ode to Dhofari Heritage appeared first on AGSI.

The established history of the UAE tends to focus on the period after the formal unification of the emirates in 1971. In the absence of a concerted institutional effort, these accounts have helped fill the gap in people’s knowledge of the pre-state era, rendering a more nuanced history. They do this by collecting oral accounts of contemporaries of the period and studying overlooked primary sources.

In April 2022, during a discussion of the Ministry of Culture’s policies on the floor of the UAE’s Parliament, Kifah Al Zaabi, a member of the UAE’s Federal National Council, spoke about these accounts. She said, “We find many outstanding accounts focused on Emirati heritage, poetry, and identity.” And she called on the ministry to find ways to support them in promoting Emirati heritage. The Ministry of Culture has since launched the National Grant Program for Culture and Creativity, which offers grants annually to support creatives and bolster cultural production in the UAE. Among the objectives of the program is to “promote and preserve the UAE’s national identity and heritage.” The inaugural recipients received their grants in 2023.

Several prominent accounts are producing captivating content and drawing an enthusiastic audience eager to learn and contribute to the effort of producing a fuller picture of Emirati history and heritage.

Emirates Date

 

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تـاريـخ الإمـارات (@emirates_date) • Instagram photos and videos

The Instagram account Emirates Date is run by an anonymous researcher who is currently pursuing a doctorate in the United Kingdom. It was launched in 2014 and boasts 351,000 followers. It focuses on collecting and studying photographs, videos, and publications. The researcher started it in part to challenge “the belief that UAE history began only 53 years ago” with the union of 1971. The researcher stressed a commitment to collaboration: “We publish our content and the content of our colleagues as well, and we support them.”

Al Mawrooth Initiative

 

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الــمـــــــــوروث (@almawrooth) • Instagram photos and videos

Self-trained Emirati researcher Saeed al-Suwaidi, who holds a bachelor’s degree in media studies, launched Al Mawrooth Initiative on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram. The X account, launched in September 2012, has 20,000 followers, while the more visually oriented Instagram account, launched later, has 73,000. The X account’s bio articulates the mission: “An initiative concerned with documenting the oral heritage in the UAE,” and it notes it is not affiliated with any government agency. The initiative focuses primarily on documenting family trees in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the 19th and first half of the 20th century.

Saeed began his project by interviewing elders and relatives around him, and he expanded the circle as the years went by. He explained his method: “I read history documented by the British, link it to oral narratives and vice versa.” Concerned about accessibility, Saeed launched the initiative to “avoid concealing information and keeping it locked away in drawers.” His social media pages have been archived by a group of university students who are currently working on publishing the content in a book and on a website.

Hussain Albadi

 

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حسين البادي (@hussainalbadi) • Instagram photos and videos

Hussain Albadi describes himself as a “field researcher.” He has been studying UAE history since the late 1980s. He focuses primarily on his Instagram account, with 47,000 followers, and has a limited presence on other platforms, such as YouTube.

Hussain began his endeavor after witnessing the passing of many members of older generations who had visited his father. “In losing the elders, we lost knowledge of our history,” he said. He first interviewed elders in his neighborhood, and the network grew from there. After more than 35 years of research and collecting, he now owns a large collection of documents, manuscripts, and photographs. Hussain also lends a helping hand to junior scholars and students who struggle to navigate the state’s official archives. “Unfortunately, the archives have a lot, but the employees do not know what they have. They are just employees, not researchers,” he elaborated. Reflecting on the state of the field and its future, he said, “The biggest problem is the bias by some researchers in the fields of history and heritage, who talk about a specific subgroup and forget about others, thus producing a biased, superficial, and fragmented history, and I am against that.”

Falah Initiative

 

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مبادرة فلاح (@falahinitiative) • Instagram photos and videos

The Falah Initiative was established by Thani al-Muhairi in 2017 at the Tabah Foundation, a nonprofit organization established in Abu Dhabi in 2005, to document religious heritage in the region. It has accounts on Instagram, X, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. The initiative covers eastern Arabia and southern Iran, with a focus on the early modern and modern periods. Thani studied Islamic law and is now pursuing graduate studies in philosophy and sociology at Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi. He began the initiative by interviewing elders, especially clerics. He was encouraged by friends to share his research on social media to reach a larger audience. The initiative has thus far published research on over 102 clerics from the region, including more than 10 women. Thani said, “Sometimes the grandchildren do not know that their grandparent was a scholar, so we shed light on them, their writings, and their connections to scholars in the Islamic world.”

One goal of the initiative is to revive the tradition of the mawlid (malid in the Emirati dialect), the celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. Thani said, “The malid is becoming extinct. We have gathered young people who are interested in the malid and gathered elderly people who have lived through it and know it. We have collected the malid poems and preserved them to be performed at a weekly gathering in Abu Dhabi.” The initiative has faced backlash for its work on the mawlid and accusations of heresy. To address this, the initiative produced an informational pamphlet. The initiative also directs people to fatwas explaining that its role is to preserve the tradition rather than delve into debates around its validity in Islam.

Thani said he is in constant communication with Saeed al-Suwaidi and often calls to ask about a cleric or historical figure’s ancestry. Thani said other researchers also direct religious heritage inquiries to him. He emphasized the collaborative, communal spirit of this network. He also mentioned how his social media followers have enriched this research operation by helping locate sources and engaging in fruitful discussions in direct messages. While the initiative has no formal partnerships with other organizations, Thani said he utilizes both state and private archives in the UAE and beyond. However, he laments, “Sometimes institutional work ruins research. The independent researcher is free and not too constrained.”

Like other researchers, Thani wants to shed myths about pre-1971 UAE, such as “the belief that we are a people with no history, poor and needy until oil came. Before the pearl crisis and the World War, we were fine. We had property and farms. We had scholars. We had forts, education, and spirituality.” Another point of contention Thani discussed is the romanticization and disparaging of the region’s desert environment. He said, “They put a photograph of the UAE with only desert. Our idea of civilization is different from that of the West. Civilization for us does not necessarily mean buildings. For the Arabs of old, constructing meaning was far more important than constructing buildings. They had moral buildings and palaces of morals – heritage, community, and generosity.”

Harnessing Social Media for Heritage

Harnessing the educational power of social media is beneficial to the Gulf, a region with a large youth population and heavy social media use. Advances in the study of history in academia typically remain within a small circle of scholars, while the national curriculum can be outdated and difficult to reform. The work of independent researchers can be an effective means to bring new scholarship to the masses. While lacking the breadth and accessibility of mandatory K-12 education, it is nevertheless a compelling medium independent from bureaucratic institutions.

The post Independent Researchers Are Advancing UAE History on Social Media appeared first on AGSI.

In December 2024, Bahrain held its annual Celebrate Bahrain festival, with concerts and other events and activities intended to bring people together to celebrate Bahrain’s culture and history. Beyond commercial projects aimed at attracting tourists and investors, the festival sought to bring the narrow streets of Muharraq’s and Manama’s old souqs to life with local art and cultural events. Bahrain’s Authority for Culture and Antiquities and Ministry of Tourism, aided by local vendors, artists, architects, merchants, researchers, and writers, came together to design a festival that spoke to Bahrainis and visitors alike. Citizens and tourists came in droves, on weekends and weekdays, to attend Layali al-Muharraq, Manama Retro, Budaiya Farmers’ Market, Heritage Village, and other events intended to showcase Bahrain’s many villages and towns.

Manama Retro was a two-week festival that animated a handful of central blocks in downtown Manama, evoking memories of the neighborhood in the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. Street signs were made to look as they did in the souq’s heyday. Old Bahraini-owned businesses, including restaurants, cinemas, and shops, sold old-fashioned products. An abandoned mall was refurbished to host an arcade, two museums, antique shops, and, to the delight of young and old, a haunted house. Named after Um Humar, the house told the story of a well-known character from Bahraini folklore, who was invoked to scare children to prevent them from leaving their homes at noon, when the streets were at their hottest. One of the highlights for many visitors of the festival was a museum, The Soul of Manama, which laid out a brief history of Manama in short, exhibit-style narratives incorporating oral histories and showcasing antiques from Manama’s residents. Old magazines, typewriters, uniforms, cutlery, and plates evoked a simpler era that was nonetheless rich in culture and community.

Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Khalifa at the “Soul of Manama” exhibit. (Credit: Fadhel al-Sharaf)

The Past Captured Through the Voices of Residents

Fadhel al-Sharaf is the founder of Manama Story, an online museum and oral-history archive that designed and curated the “Soul of Manama” exhibit for Manama Retro. Fadhel started Manama Story in 2008 with the intent to make a book preserving old pictures of Manama from its residents’ personal archives. He grew up in the city and watched as its families slowly began moving out of the densely populated central neighborhoods into newer towns and residential developments. He felt that the city was beginning to lose its soul, and he wanted to preserve its memory, even if its original facade was diminished and its buildings were torn down to make way for showpiece architecture and multilane highways. 

Manama has undergone many changes in the past century, notably in the last 25 years. Its central souq, which used to contain 24 specialized markets, once bustled with activity. Today, its narrow streets have given way to vast highways, parking garages, and massive skyscrapers. Its gate, once right on the coast, is now miles away from the water, hidden behind the grandeur of the Financial Harbor and Bahrain Bay, both of which were constructed on reclaimed land.

With his team of volunteers, Fadhel released six editions of the book “Manama’s Features,” each focused on a different theme, including Manama’s schools, merchant families, and traditional architecture. The books were a precursor to what eventually became an e-museum that catalogues not only the pictures Fadhel collected from Manama’s past residents but the stories of some of the neighborhoods’ oldest residents. These oral histories Fadhel hopes will become the foundation of a national oral-history archive of daily life of the city of Manama.

People view the “Soul of Manama” exhibit.
(Credit: Fadhel al-Sharaf)

Enabling Access To Archival Material

Fadhel created the e-museum to provide a platform to help increase engagement with the collective memories of Manama. He explained, “Bahrain and the Gulf more widely do have massive archives collected that are available in national libraries and in people’s homes, but they are difficult to access. What we aimed to do when starting Manama Story was to preserve and enable access and interaction with the material we collected.”

Fadhel’s vision has been a success. Manama Story is widely followed across social media. People from around the Gulf regularly reach out with messages of appreciation and expressions of nostalgia for Manama’s old days. The team has also helped put together exhibits and festivals to enable interaction with the material they have collected. Soon they hope to launch an interactive map that helps residents and tourists view the older parts of Manama based on the archival pictures that Manama Story collected. The team also arranges tours that take visitors on a journey through Manama’s culinary, architectural, and archeological history.

A Return to History To Invest in the Future

Everyone from the region will tell you that the city they live in is the “pearl” of the Gulf. Yet many Gulf citizens also hold Manama in special regard. According to Fadhel, “Manama is not only the capital of Bahrain, it is a cosmopolitan city that has and continues to absorb residents from different walks of life and parts of the world. Its streets and its souqs are colored with the multicultural lives that are brought to them. They say Berlin is multicultural, but Manama has a mix of religions, races, and cultures that are unusual for such a small place. This narrow space contains four religions along with houses of worship that represent them. It is also a city of many firsts. It is in Manama that the first municipality in the Gulf was built, and the first bank and the first cinema, first school, and first hospital. Many firsts happened within the relatively small part of a small country. It is not your run of the mill casual city, and it deserves pause to record, archive, and admire.”

Like Manama, cities across the Gulf have begun similar archiving initiatives to record the history of their residents. The collected archival material is then used in festivals like Manama Retro as part of an overall strategy to encourage both local and international tourism. Fadhel spoke about this shift to preserve the past instead of simply destroying and rebuilding for the future: “There is an active interest in preserving the history of the region, not only for a scholarly purpose but for an economic and social one.” He noted that Saudi Arabia launched the festival Youm Badaina, which brought out large crowds to commemorate the founding of the kingdom. He continued, “Malls and fancy residential buildings and luxury hotels are important as well for the economy and the development of the Gulf, but it is its history that gives it a competitive edge in the global tourism market. It is the stories we tell that bring people to our shores.” 

When asked what motivates him to continue the archive of the history of Manama, Fadhel said, “seeing people’s interactions with the archives we’ve collected, especially when they take actions on it to further their own careers and create something for themselves and for the country. If they are encouraged to preserve their own heritage and be proud of it, this is what motivates me and the team to keep going. Some people walk into our exhibits and begin to cry because it brings back a memory that they thought was lost. Creatives in Bahrain feel encouraged to start a new business or learn a craft that we thought was lost to the times because of the archives that we’ve collected and made accessible to them. It makes me proud to see and pushes me to keep going and keep recording.”

Fadhel admitted that it wasn’t just the immediate impact that motivated him to continue to create and add to Manama Story. “The value of archives is one that isn’t really seen immediately. Hardly anyone watches our hourlong videos of the first female teacher in Bahrain, for example, but one day a researcher may want to write about her. Someone might be motivated by her story.” When uncovering those stories, a new generation may be inspired by Manama’s spirit.

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Today’s online interconnectivity ties the Gulf Arab states to each other and the world at large. Short reels, TikToks, longer YouTube series, and films produced by Hollywood and Bollywood are increasingly matched by content from khaleejis, who are now both creators and consumers. Recently, Gulf governments have begun to invest in content creation, with Saudi Arabia leading the field by investing $234 million through its Film Sector Financing Program, which aims to strengthen the country’s film infrastructure through production grants. This state investment reflects a dedication to encouraging creators and supporting an interest shared by its people, who reminisce of a time when khaleejis saw themselves represented on screen.

AGSIW sat down with Bahraini producer and writer Eman Alsabah. Eman is the creator of Fablemill, a production house and entertainment and culture advisory startup, and IndieSouq, the first crowdfunding platform for filmmakers specifically for the Middle East and North Africa.

Eman founded Fablemill in 2020 with the mission of amplifying Arab voices through cinema and TV. She left the corporate world to create the films she wanted to see on screen. Fablemill is now an award-winning production house. Its first film, “A Small Dream,” has been featured in film festivals worldwide and was the recipient of the Best Gulf Cooperation Council Film Award at the Saudi Film Festival and the Silver Sail Award at the Gulf Media Festival.

The Journey Toward Filmmaking and Fablemill

Eman had always wanted to be a filmmaker, but a dearth of opportunities for filmmaking at the time of her high school graduation left her resigned to a career in engineering. However, she never let go of her dream of one day becoming a filmmaker. She tested out many hobbies in the hope of sating her creative urge, but they all brought her back to film.

When considering the content that was available on TV on the Gulf and from the Gulf, she said that she felt, “We weren’t allowed to be human on television or screen; even local production was steeped in the same stereotypes that are perpetuated in Western media.” She began writing and eventually decided to start Fablemill, a production house that would go beyond the stereotypical, creating content that changes the narrative about khaleejis as people and what they represent. It aims to showcase more grounded examples, innovative narratives, and fresh talent.

A Bygone Era in Khaleeji Film 

When asked if there was ever a golden era of khaleeji cinema, Eman said, “Yes, there was, sometime in the 1990s to the early 2000s. I remember there was a show that was popular in the early 2000s that touched peoples’ hearts. It was such an impactful show because it showcased a part of the community that was marginalized, and it was done very authentically. I think, because of the success of that show, somehow, people thought that this formula works, so they continued the same motifs but with storylines that did not offer new themes or perspectives. That was the birth of the overly dramatic khaleeji drama series.”

These dramas are what the generation of khaleejis who came of age in the early 2000s remember as the content produced by the Gulf. They were often produced yearly and released during Ramadan. The classic characters and stereotypes Eman refers to are vivid in the khaleeji psyche: a cruel mother-in-law, a wife subjected to domestic violence, an abusive and at times alcoholic father, a husband who leads a secret life with another family, a rebellious teenager who sneaks around to partake in all kinds of vices. Eman and her team want to showcase a different perspective of khaleeji culture and history.

The Film and TV Ecosystems in the Gulf States

Gulf states are beginning to invest heavily in film and television production, in line with other initiatives aimed at diversifying the economy. The UAE has established itself as a destination for global media production projects from Hollywood to Bollywood and most recently . Gulf states have also established film festivals to support local producers and have dedicated funds to filmmakers. The Bahrain Film Festival is now in its fourth iteration and showcased 89 films from across the Arab world in 2024 alone. Qatar’s Ajyal Film festival has been running for 12 years. However, Saudi Arabia is currently leading the Gulf film production scene. Eman stressed, “It is incredible what has happened in Saudi Arabia alone in the past few years. We have three film festivals that have come out of Saudi, and they produced 95 local films in the past year alone with many of them doing quite well both nationally and internationally.”

Saudi Arabia is also unique in its support for local narratives. The government is not only supporting Saudi creators financially, but it is providing them with the artistic license to experiment, and that, Eman said, is creating a ripple effect in the region. Saudi films are gaining international attention because of this artistic freedom. This, in turn, positively influences khaleeji filmmakers who had been on the margins of the international filmmaking space – now they are an integral part of it because of the far-reaching influence that Saudi films are gaining.

Regional film festivals, such as the Red Sea Film Festival and Cairo International Film Festival, have also brought together regional artists and creators who had often worked in silos. The Arab film scene is coming together for the first time since the 1960s. Eman noted, “Egyptian films are playing in Saudi festivals and vice versa. The Arab world is becoming more of a village than it used to be when it comes to filmmaking and content creation. We used to consume more Western content, and now we are excited to see more narratives from our own countries.”

When speaking of the challenges that the film and TV industries face, Eman mentioned the difficulty in monetization for both. There is heavy competition among the different platforms and classic TV. With the exception of Saudi Arabia, movie theater attendance has not recovered since the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, theatrical viewership continues to decline worldwide. It is a fight over eyeballs at the end of the day, which is a wider industry trend even outside the Middle East.

A Production House and Consulting Firm

Eman spoke of Fablemill as a studio that produces local content for both TV and cinema. “We want the local market to see our narratives and engage with them. And we want to showcase who we are to the world by creating exciting storylines that resonate with global audiences. This is difficult because we also care about local audiences. We want to create content fit for the region, but we also want this content to travel. As exciting as local movie trends are, we shouldn’t be stagnant, we should be more ambitious and seek to penetrate the international market and expand outward.”

When Eman decided to start Fablemill, her main goal was to produce khaleeji content. But to fund the production house and expand her influence around entertainment and culture, Eman established an advisory arm of the firm first. Eman noted, “Advisory is really crucial to us not just because it supports our productions but because of our intent to be an effective part of the creative industries by supporting organizations, empowering local talent, and developing opportunities that help the creative economy to thrive. Our on-the-ground experience, access, and understanding of local GCC markets gives us a unique perspective; we understand both the players and the stakeholders, and we can bridge the gap between both, creating a vibrant and sustainable ecosystem.”

Eman Alsabah being awarded the first place prize for Fablemill at the Startup Bahrain Pitch Competition in April, 2023. (Credit: Tamkeen)

IndieSouq Fills a Fundraising Gap

Many filmmakers have expressed that fundraising can be the most difficult and time-consuming part of the filmmaking process. Many young filmmakers in the Gulf face issues funding their films and bringing them to production. Funding instruments are rare in the Gulf and broader Middle East. Saudi Arabia is filling that gap but mostly just domestically.

IndieSouq is working to address the fundraising issue through a crowdfunding platform specifically dedicated to film and television. It gives filmmakers the opportunity to create the kind of films they want to see based on the interests of their audiences. It is one of only two rewards-based crowdfunding platforms in the Middle East. Eman acknowledged, however, that people in the region are still not used to crowdfunding, especially online and for creative projects. IndieSouq’s job in the next few years will be to educate the public on both the importance and methods of crowdfunding.

Bringing Stories to Life

When asked about the kinds of stories Fablemill adopts, Eman said that they want to showcase unique stories from voices that traditionally have not been represented on screen. That is why female voices are particularly important and why they have featured heavily in the content they have created thus far.

“My hope is that more risks will be taken on storytelling. I want to see more voices from people we haven’t heard from and more vulnerabilities reflected on screen that we have not yet seen. It would also be great to see genres such as sci-fi and horror that have not historically been part of the film production scene in the Gulf. My hope is for Fablemill to become the company that is known for its innovative storytelling and new and interesting content and for providing an experience that hasn’t been around. For IndieSouq, I hope thousands of projects will come to fruition: from kids’ stories to books to films. I hope to provide all the brave creators in the Middle East with the opportunity to bring their stories to life.”

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“Gentle Porosities” is Mashael’s debut solo show and the inaugural exhibition in Hunna Art’s first permanent space, a contemporary art gallery dedicated to championing women artists from and based in the Arabian Peninsula. In the exhibition, Mashael builds on her yearslong investigation of the relationship of the body and history to the land and future. Presenting several new works of art across a range of mediums, the show brings together Mashael’s existing interdisciplinary practice to create a multisensory experience for viewers, one that captures the ethereal, alluring, and enigmatic subject of water in her world.

AGSIW spoke to Mashael to learn more about her artistic journey and how “Gentle Porosities” cements her place as a rising star in conceptual Gulf art.

Artist Mashael Alsaie, Shuwaikh Industrial, Kuwait, October 2024. (Courtesy of Hunna Art)

AGSIW: How did you become an artist?

Mashael: I inherited art as a passion because my grandmother was an artist, and my great aunt is a porcelain painter. So, I grew up around art. How I arrived to become an artist was very much a compounding curiosity about where I’m from and what I inherit as a person existing within this matrix of understanding the world and your own body.

AGSIW: Tell us how “Gentle Porosities” came to be and what it means to you at this stage in your career.

Mashael: Océane Sailly, who is my gallerist at Hunna Art and who I’ve been working with for two years now, called me this summer, and said, “Hey, we’re opening our first space, would you like to be the first show and have your first solo with Hunna?” I was so excited about it also because I had to make a really tough decision earlier this year if I wanted to go the full-time artist route or if I wanted to continue working. It was already a huge personal artistic crisis for me, so to have a solo like this meant a lot for me in telling myself that I can do both.

I thought I was going to be presenting old work or work that exists, but I made entirely new work for the show. With regard to the glass pieces, for example, I was so inspired I decided to make new ones. I ended up making 20 new pieces for the show.

I think a lot of people from a similar generation lock themselves into the “emerging artist” box. I remember someone telling me that once you have your first solo show, you’re no longer emerging, you’re mid-career. For me, this show felt like graduation.

“Gentle Porosities” exhibition still, Shuwaikh Industrial, Kuwait, October 2024. (Courtesy of Hunna Art)

AGSIW: You also work for a cultural organization in Saudi Arabia. How does your professional career across the Gulf cultural sector feed into or complement your creative practice?

Mashael: It’s huge! I love talking to artists, and I also live with four other artists, so I’m always with artists talking about art or encouraging them to engage with the community. I do feel like my practice extends beyond arts practice, so, the programming that I do at the Biennale Foundation makes it more about the community.

For example, we just held an art book fair, and I was working on it at the same time as I was making my first art book. I became so inspired by all these publishers and the things that they’re bringing. I was learning about risograph printing and getting to print on RISO. It felt extremely collaborative. The negative drawback is that when you’re also creative at your workplace, it is tough to find the juice to be creative in your practice, so I just have to learn how to manage that.

AGSIW: How did you go about organizing “Gentle Porosities” spatially?

Mashael: We curated it in the form of a whirlpool. The first thing that you actually encounter is audio. I was thinking about a siren that would lure one into the show. For the work itself, I was thinking about it in terms of water levels; you start from the top where there is glitter on the water surface, and then you continue to dive deeper into the work. As you go further into the space, I really wanted the industrial materiality and the natural materiality to morph together, to transform, and to consume one another. I wanted them to feel like they were dancing: the water, ecology, land, steel, metal, glass. Then, even as you’re coming out, you come back to the glittering water. The space wasn’t that big, so I didn’t feel overwhelmed by building things, and we tried to keep things quite measured.

“Sea of Tears” installation in the “Gentle Porosities” exhibition, Shuwaikh Industrial, Kuwait, October 2024. (Courtesy of Hunna Art)

AGSIW: Not only was this your first solo show, but it was also your first time curating your own work. What did you learn during this process?

Mashael: It was a tough task honestly because I wanted the show to have a thesis. I wanted to curate a question, not even an answer. What ended up happening is I treated the curatorial question like an artwork itself.

There are things I learned as the curator-artist, things like the distances between works, the interaction with the architecture of the room to mimic that whirlpool that I wanted. I also had to consider, “What is my agenda, both as a curator but also for myself as an artist?” Materially, it was really important to curate myself to come out with new perspectives on my work. Then, 10 minutes after the opening, I was like, “OK, I’m done, I want to go back to the studio.”

AGSIW: What does the show’s title, “Gentle Porosities,” refer to?

Mashael: For “porosities,” I was thinking about how the land is porous and memories are porous across time, mythology, and land. But, specifically relating to water and the whirlpool, I wanted the show to feel like a living, breathing alien organism. I was really hooked onto the word “porous,” and I knew I wanted that to frame the work. I chose “gentle” because my approach is quite tender. You know how for some people, their tendency is toward something specific? I’ve realized that my tendency, starting as a photographer, is that I can’t help but render something ethereal, and that has just been my signature.

One of the new lines of thinking I had from the show ­– and I talked about this in the publication that we made for the show – is to look at ultrasounds as references of the body and the land body. So now for my next body of work, I’m going to try to work with strictly medical imagery to see how I can also make that ethereal or to see if my signature also will imprint on that.

“Dancing, Dancing, Dancing” in the “Gentle Porosities” exhibition, Shuwaikh Industrial, Kuwait, October 2024. (Courtesy of Hunna Art)

AGSIW: Mythology features in a lot of your work. Do you feel like that helps foster a better understanding of the land and people’s relation to it?

Mashael: What it does is create a humanoid because the mythology creates a body, or a human body, out of the land body. So, when I talk about the Adhari Spring and her tears being a part of the spring and the land, then the land is feminine – it’s a woman.

Something that came to me as a revelation during this experience is that previously I had labeled a lot of my work as ecofeminist. But now I’m trying to move away from a gendered definition of land to a consideration of indigenous land practices that may be matrilineal but are not necessarily gendered in the Western construct of ecofeminism. A lot of the work I’ve been doing over the past five years about this one site – the Adhari Spring – has captured a lot of my concern about where my land is or how my land has evolved.

AGSIW: What is the main message that you want viewers to take away from the exhibition?

Mashael: My message is a reborn sensitivity to reengage with landscapes. A lot of my works are of farmlands that are destroyed or springs that are dried up. The water resource is a huge question. What I want people to take away is a heightened tenderness toward the land or a place.

In a wider context, I felt, making this show with the ongoing genocide in Palestine was a reminder that land is so precarious, destruction of land so political. I feel like the artist in me is not quite a talking head but rather the mouthpiece for inherited, collective questions of land rather than individual questions of land.

“Gentle Porosities” exhibition opening night, Shuwaikh Industrial, Kuwait, October 23. (Courtesy of Hunna Art)

The post “Gentle Porosities:” Mashael Alsaie’s First Solo Show Urges a Tenderness Toward the Land appeared first on AGSI.

Collaging as a creative process and art form gained traction in the early 1900s when modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, overlaid contemporary media and images to tell new stories. Collage artists today often use the medium to critique practices of mass consumption and consumer culture, using the very objects of their critique in their commentary. Artists around the world also turn to collaging as a means to explore more intimate histories. Mixed media Emirati artist Maryam Alhuraiz, for instance, compiles her childhood photos and stitches them together with red thread to examine the often fragmented nature of memories while also adding a playful touch to otherwise perfectly posed and idealized photographs.

As a researcher, archivist, and mixed media artist, Kawthar Al Harthi draws inspiration from material objects around her that tell stories of contemporary life in Oman. For a project in 2018, she collected library cards from the Sultan Qaboos University library to create a collage reflecting a snippet of university life in the late 20th century.

Untitled, 2021. (Courtesy of Kawthar Al Harthi)

AGSIW spoke to Kawthar, the winner of Stal Gallery’s 2022 Young Emerging Artist Prize, to learn more about her creative methods across various media and how her small-town upbringing shaped her artistic practice.

AGSIW: How did you become an artist?

Kawthar: I started drawing when I was a child, and then I began making collages. I really like playing with elements and imagining things and combining things together using the collage format. I’ve also tried photography and playing with my photos, using them to make collages. I’m experimenting with installation art now, so in the last two years I’ve started using ready-made objects. I’m thinking of the opportunities that these objects have, their memories, and their stories. I’m really interested in this. I collect objects from my village, Al Mudaybi in Sharqiyah, and I play with them, and I make installations with them. I studied art education at Sultan Qaboos University, and then I completed a master’s degree in art at SQU.

“What Father Left,” 2019. (Courtesy of Kawthar Al Harthi)

AGSIW: How did you start collaging?

Kawthar: I actually started collaging with two artworks. I collected my father’s notebooks, schoolbooks, phonebook, and so many elements that he left behind, and I started making a collage out of it, called “What Father Left.” My father died when I was nine years old, and I remember after his death I started searching in his library – he had a big library – and I started looking into his notebooks and his diaries and all of that. I also took photos of things that he left, like a tree that he grew and that died and was later cut down.

I think it helped to visualize his life in a different way – maybe in my way as a researcher or someone who wants to discover more about this person. That was one of my earliest collage works, and then I started to play more with collages.

AGSIW: How did this creative research exercise help you hone your craft as a collage artist? What did you learn through this process?

Kawthar: I was just playing and discovering. I wanted to let myself play without rules and just do what I felt. After “What Father Left,” I started to minimalize the elements in my collages. This work had so many elements – so many drawings, writings, and photos. But then I started to use fewer elements because I felt like I didn’t need all of this to say something.

AGSIW: What is an example of one of your later, more minimalist collages?

Kawthar: It was a collage that I made in 2020. I had spent a year without making any art and just sketching. So, I decided to just play with things without considering it as an artwork. I just took pieces from my favorite poems and a photo, and then I started drawing on them and writing in a random way.

I wrote something from my diary, and I started drawing my favorite things and things from my memory. It eventually became an artwork and then became the cover for my friend’s book. I was so happy with that work because it opened the way for me for so many works.

AGSIW: What do different colors, such as red, signify in your work?

Kawthar: I don’t think a lot about colors. I just put what I feel; when I feel it’s red, I add red. In some of my work, red can reflect blood or life and maybe a desire to bring things back to life. Sometimes I use a color like red to reconnect with an element in the work, maybe an abandoned place or something hidden within a memory.

Untitled, 2022. (Courtesy of Kawthar Al Harthi)

AGSIW: How did you later begin experimenting with installation art?

Kawthar: For an exhibition at Stal Gallery a few years ago, “Center of the Universe: Reflection on Self-Portrait,” I was thinking of the palm tree as a reflection of my inner self. Every year, we cut pieces of the palm tree branches, and new branches grow. I was thinking of time and my old memories and how every year I cut parts of myself, and I grow other, new parts. This work was my first installation. I was experimenting and started with a photo, then I started thinking about what I could do with this photo, how I could turn it into a new story.

I took this picture in a wadi (valley in Arabic), in the village next to mine, and was standing in the middle of the palm trees and wadi, so the position of my body was similar to the position of the palm trees standing there. I’ve been very connected with nature since I was a child. I grew up in a place full of palm trees, and we used to take care of the trees and the animals and all of that. So, I think part of myself is very connected with nature.

AGSIW: Tell us about the installation that you later created as the grand prize winner for the Stal Gallery Young Emerging Artist Prize.

Kawthar: For this work, I collected bricks that are the remnants of walls that have been destroyed by floods in my village. These are very old walls, so it was like the walls were witnessing what has been happening in the village for a long time – it’s like they have a memory. When the floods destroyed parts of these walls, it was like part of the memory was gone. In a way, this can be related to climate change. In the last few years, we have had a lot of floods, and they have destroyed a lot of things.

I collected the bricks from the bottom of the wadi. These are the walls of farms, and I really like the way that the farmers rebuild these specific parts of the wall. Some of them just put bricks without cement, and I found it very interesting visually. The bricks were in the middle of the wadi under the soil, so part of them was hidden. To me, that is like the hidden memories that we have in the unconscious mind.

The gypsum hands in the installation can be seen as symbols of bringing back memories or touching them to feel that they still exist.

“Identification,” 2022. (Courtesy of Kawthar Al Harthi)

AGSIW: What are some of the different materials that you have been experimenting with?

Kawthar: During the pandemic, I was doing something very strange – I was collecting pieces of poems, whether from my father’s library or others I had read, that talk about doors or the symbol of the door. Essentially, I scanned a page of a poem, then I cut out the piece about the door and kept the remaining words. The remains are what I used in my work. At this time, I was also really upset that some of my favorite trees were cut to build something in their place. So, I started drawing them and then adding lines from these poems. I still don’t know what to do with the door parts, so I’m keeping them for the future.

There is also something new: I’m working on a collage, but in a different way – I’m now working with textile. It’s something new, but the style is related to my previous work. The collage is for a specific project that hasn’t been announced yet, for later this year or early next year. It’s about my grandmother who was born in Zanzibar, and I went to see the place where she was born a few weeks ago.

AGSIW: In these poems and your collages, what does the symbol of the door mean to you?

Kawthar: It’s not about the door or removing the door. I just have a box full of pieces of poems, and I started discovering what these pieces were. Sometimes it doesn’t have a specific meaning – I don’t think art should be very direct. If it’s something random, it makes you wonder what the meaning could be. Sometimes art is not understandable. It’s like I’m not understanding a certain moment, so I put this feeling into the art.

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Launched during the coronavirus pandemic, the Khosh Fkra podcast was the first in Bahrain to discuss business ideas and challenges in a simple manner. Khosh Fkra co-founders Bader Almadaifa, Abdulla Ahmadi, and Wasan Yousif developed interactive and fun business content on social media, ending each post with their infamous cat meme. The topics ranged from inflation, debt, and loan management to interesting facts about local Bahraini businesses.

AGSIW spoke to Bader Almadaifa, the CEO of Khosh Fkra Media, to learn more about his experience, motivation, and journey with Khosh Fkra as it transitioned from a business podcast to marketing agency serving clients in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.

AGSIW: Tell us about yourself and the story behind Khosh Fkra.

Bader: I studied law with business as a double major at the University of Brighton in the United Kingdom. For a long time, my main ambition was to become a commercial lawyer at a multinational firm in the GCC. But I also had a passion for business. I was always starting ventures from clothing brands to card games, you name it.

The breakthrough came when I was on a team conducting interviews of young Bahraini business owners to learn their stories as part of a social experiment that’s going to be written about in a book. During these interviews, I met many young, passionate, and ambitious Bahrainis from different fields and expanded my network. Among them were two lovely individuals called Abdullah and Wasan. Together, we decided to start a business podcast, the first of its kind in Bahrain at the time. It was fresh and exciting, launched amid the pandemic.

As a group of university kids, we started Khosh Fkra, which means “amazing idea” in Bahraini slang, initially as a podcast sharing the stories of Bahraini entrepreneurs and leading figures in business. We created business content to market the podcast, mainly on Instagram, and eventually this content gained popularity over our podcast! We realized that this intrigued our audience, so we shifted our focus and effort to enhancing its quality.

AGSIW: What type of content were you producing? How did this lead to other business opportunities?

Bader: From an account largely supported by friends and family, today our content reaches over 50 million views on a monthly basis with over 500,000 followers across all platforms. We initially presented business and financial content in a fun and engaging way, accompanied by our infamous cat meme at the end. Our posts started “going viral” in Bahrain, and this led to several marketing agencies, influencers, and professionals following and engaging with our content. Our media outreach and audience base caught the attention of businesses in Bahrain as an innovative way to promote their products and services.

Through this we saw a window of opportunity to monetize this platform to provide corporate content creation and social media development, especially as our audience became valuable for many advertisers. We started receiving offers for small-sized collaborations with businesses over social media, then we slowly received promotion deals aiding in our transition into a media agency. Today our agency offers content creation services and advertising videos, and we manage social media accounts for banks, malls, restaurants, cafes, and startups in Bahrain. We expanded to Qatar and just recently to Riyadh.

Khosh Fkra Media Annual Gabgha Gathering, Ramadan 2024. (Credit: Khosh Fkra)

We turned that small initiative to educate young people about business into what is now a company that’s operating in three different cities and has a team of around 44 young Bahrainis. I’m the one managing the operations – yes, very different from commercial law! But I’m really grateful for that Khosh (amazing) idea that came to my mind a few years ago as a student and to be here telling my story.

AGSIW: What was your target audience when you started?

Bader: Honestly, starting out, we weren’t very sophisticated in terms of really drilling down on a target audience. We wanted to benefit people like ourselves who were looking for valuable content around business, as we had our own aspirations of starting a business but couldn’t find any tailored or localized content for inspiration.

AGSIW: How did students writing advice for students draw attention from businesses?

Bader: Our information on businesses drew attention from influencers, marketing agencies, and professionals who supported our content through reposts and engagements. We researched ways to monetize our platform, focusing on our competitive advantage as we made short, viral content in a market thriving on viral media content driven by consumer preferences. We opted for a business-to-business, or B2B, service aimed at promotion and brand services.

A big breakthrough that showed us we were on the right path was when one of our first clients, Ramez, reached out expressing their interest in our content. Several others followed. We began to establish credibility in the market and started pitching social media management strategies to businesses, creating new content to advertise them on our social media platforms. Our goal to create enjoyable content is constant even with our vision of the brand evolving. Our focus was the podcast when we started, but today it’s bigger.

AGSIW: Have there been any big challenges as Khosh Fkra evolved into an agency?

Bader: I can think of two main challenges. The first one was taking that leap of faith and committing to the vision entirely. Starting something as a student on the side is very different than accepting that this is my life, my career. I have no plan B. That was the big step that every startup founder has to take at one point. Successful startups are not built on the side. They’re built with the leader in the forefront fighting every single day. But if you go through law school, you do your masters, you complete your Legal Practice Course – you have a very lucrative, high paying career in front of you that’s stable and comfortable. You let go of that to follow the dream that could work out or not depending on variables outside your control. It takes a lot of guts. That decision to burn the boats was one of the most important I’ve ever had to face.

The second challenge would be in transitioning into an agency managing 44 people straight out of university, especially as I had never worked a full-time job. There is a level of social intelligence you need to have in dealing with people, how to have that balance between being strict and friendly. There is a reason high-level managerial roles come at a certain age. It takes a lot of character and experience to discipline and lead people. It requires knowing how to manage yourself. If you can’t inspire yourself, you can’t inspire anyone else.

AGSIW: Are all your 44 team members content creators?

Bader: I was the only founder starting full-time in January 2023. Around April 2023, my co-founder, Wasan, joined the team as the chief content officer. The rest of the team members are mostly content marketing executives, charged with creating content: videography and short reels that our video editor finalizes. A small part of the team are media executives working on business development, project managers, and creative directors. In addition, we have core staff in accounting and human resources.

AGSIW: Who are your biggest clients?

Bader: One of our biggest clients is Jasmis, a leading fast-food chain in Bahrain. When we started working with them it was extremely meaningful for us. The marketing post we created for Jasmis garnered our first 1,000 likes and became our first popular post. Back then, 1,000 likes to us was amazing, even though now it’s considerably below our average reach.

National Bank of Bahrain, or NBB, is another one of our top clients. West Walk of Qatar is significant as our first sole commitment client. Other interesting clients we work with are CrediMax, Benefit, and Gulf Air.

AGSIW: How are emerging agencies like Khosh Fkra changing the landscape of advertising?

Bader: Attention is the new currency. Platforms like ours know how to capture and retain it. Converting it will be the future of media.

For instance, a short video/reel we made for Junaid marketing a new perfume imitates a relative’s advice when it comes to what you should spend your money on. In 11 seconds a TikTok reel tells viewers in Bahraini dialect “Don’t buy this oud, but this oud (from Junaid Perfumes)” giving a comparison between purchasing a sports car versus buying a house. It earned 3.8 million views. Yet, the payout at the time was only 100 Bahraini dinars, about $265. Companies that pay high fees for billboards cannot match this outreach. Each video generates at least 50,000 views. This speaks to the effectiveness of the shift in media and how, with short content and key elements, you can reach a wide set of people anywhere in the world.

AGSIW: Do you have any takeaways for someone starting out or any advice you would give to your old self?

Bader: Have the courage to start. Because without that courage, without believing in yourself, you’ll never give yourself the opportunity to see what would happen.

Be brave. Don’t push it until tomorrow, the best time to start is always now.

But once you start, have the discipline to commit, continue, and keep doing it. If it’s running, keep running. If it’s building your business, keep building it. If it’s painting, keep painting. If it’s writing, keep writing. Just keep doing it!

That repetition allows you to get to the next part, which is refinement. Even if it’s just 1% every day, all of a sudden, those incremental improvements will produce an almost unrecognizable transformation. That’s a principle that can be applied to everything, whether we’re talking fitness, writing, or building a business.

When it comes to business, all you need to do is have the courage to start and the discipline to keep going.

The post Khosh Fkra Reshapes Bahrain’s Media appeared first on AGSI.

The group Hamad performs with, the Kuwait Comedy Club, holds free stand-up comedy shows weekly. The club welcomes acts who deploy irony and sarcasm – essential tools when dealing with sensitive social issues. This offers a platform for promoting open discussion of and appreciation for problems plaguing Kuwaiti and broader society, while also creating empathy among participants who laugh at each other’s jokes.

Comedy lovers see the club as one of the funniest venues in Kuwait City. It has a healthy social media presence, attracting nearly 17,000 Instagram followers. Both Hamad and the Kuwait Comedy Club have become important elements of Kuwait’s cultural scene, using humor as a potent tool to motivate, teach, and unite. AGSIW recently spoke to Hamad, who talked about his experiences doing stand-up comedy, what makes a joke resonate with an audience, and the comedic influences that have shaped his personal journey.

Hamad AlShriaan performing stand-up. (Credit: Hamad AlShriaan)

AGSIW: Can you tell us about the Kuwait Comedy Club?

Hamad: The Kuwait Comedy Club began gaining popularity around 2012, when it was established by Ahmad AlShammari and Ahmad Bosaif. I recently joined the club, and it holds free events every Monday at different venues with improvisation and comedy segments. As soon as we announce a show, all the seats are taken two hours later because tickets are free. This shows how popular the club has become as an entertainment venue in Kuwait.

AGSIW: Talk about your creative process. Do you have any preperformance or preproduction rituals?

Hamad: Usually, before a stand-up comedy show, you must know the demographics of the audience. This allows you to change your approach for different individuals. For instance, in Kuwait, I did two shows for people of two different backgrounds. One audience was Western influenced, while the other was traditionally Kuwaiti and lacked any Western exposure. This led me to change my jokes and delivery. You cannot tell the same joke to two different audiences.

AGSIW: Who were your early comedic influences? Were they Western or Gulf comedians?

Hamad: From a young age, all I did was watch comedy movies and comedy shows. I really like the romantic comedy genre. One of my favorite shows is Seinfeld, which I think is extremely funny. When I was 12 or 13, YouTube began gaining traction, so I became interested in Western stand-up comedians through the platform.

AGSIW: Your style of humor on Instagram has made you quite popular. How do you mix Kuwaiti references about local culture with topics that people from other countries can relate to?

Hamad: Stand-up allows people to be close to the comedian because they can provide observations to connect with the audience. For instance, when I talk about leaving work during rush hour in Kuwait City at a show in Kuwait, a wide range of individuals relate to what I am saying because people know what it’s like to be stuck in traffic in Kuwait. However, if you speak to a Kuwaiti or Gulf audience about a foreign experience, such as the New York City metro, they will not connect with your jokes, and the delivery will be poorly received. As a comedian, you must make sure you know who your audience is to ensure effective communication.

Most of my jokes are about daily problems. When I started, I began discussing the topic of marriage, and it was well received. Kuwaitis are used to jokes about marriage, especially within diwaniyas, where men usually talk about their struggles in marriage. These topics are comfortably discussed and allow people to laugh in an easy manner.

Hamad AlShriaan performing at Q8 Comedy Club. (Credit: Hamad AlShriaan)

AGSIW: Comedy can serve as a mirror reflecting society’s cultural values and beliefs. What are some of the major themes or ideas that you tend to explore in your stand-up routines?

Hamad: Generally speaking, as a comedian, you make sure not to mix your personal life with your comedy career. Immersing yourself in personal problems in your jokes obscures the comedic vision. For instance, if I criticize a certain cultural practice within Kuwaiti society, some of the audience typically won’t like it. Ultimately, this will lead to backlash, which I tend to avoid. I want my audience to be on my side and not be hostile toward me. Once, I said in a joke about a Kuwaiti man: “Ten different women want him, but this is not true because maybe his own partner does not want to be with him!” Therefore, I am very careful if I use personal stories in my comedic practice.

AGSIW: How do you make sure that your art, as a Kuwaiti artist, remains true to its heritage?

Hamad: There needs to be equal balance between your culture and yourself so that you, as a comedian, can illustrate to others your true authentic self without restricting your personality. Always stay true to yourself, and show this to people regardless of their origin. For instance, when I went to Madrid, Spain, I did not have to explain to the audience what Kuwait actually is – they already knew. Although people in Spain are not from Kuwait, they can still ultimately connect with the messages being conveyed in my comedy. It breaks down barriers between others.

Once, during a show in Bahrain, I made a joke about how Bahrainis and Saudis always ask, “Where are you from in Kuwait?” But what the Bahrainis and Saudis don’t know is Kuwait is so small geographically that no one asks this question in Kuwait! The contrast makes Bahrainis and Saudis laugh.

AGSIW: In this age of social media, how can you ensure that your online personality is true but still appeals to the audience?

Hamad: When I first began uploading videos on social media, I knew I had to post relatable content, such as daily life experiences. Generally, as soon as I get an idea to post a video, I immediately do it. This allows me to share a more authentic experience with my audience.

AGSIW: Can comedy bring about positive change in Gulf states, such as Kuwait?

Hamad: You can be a beacon for change, but not every comedian does it, and it differs on a case-by-case basis. When I allow you to laugh about a silly thing that you do, it allows you to conclude that you must stop that silly practice. When the audience realizes that they are doing something silly, that changes their perspective. Whenever I see someone doing something obnoxious, I try to mention it in my comedy shows, which could be a form of reactionary activism.

AGSIW: If there was one thing you could recommend to a young comedian, what would it be?

Hamad: I don’t generally recommend becoming a comedian. However, if you want to be one, being a funny person is a sign you can make it as a comedian. Generally speaking, we Kuwaitis enjoy international arts and culture, whether it is music, visual arts, or television. We also love films. However, we generally do not want to become comedians or actors because it is frowned upon and has a negative connotation in Kuwaiti society. Most Kuwaiti parents don’t want their children to be comedians or actors. However, if you are a young person aspiring to be a comedian, I suggest you first go perform at a theater to see the audience’s reactions to your jokes.

AGSIW: Are you pursuing other mediums besides comedy?

Hamad: I want to write a masrahiya, or Kuwaiti play. Previously, I helped write the second season of the show “Taqdeer Alahteeyaj” (“Needs Assessment”), which is supposed to be an adaptation of “The Office.” Also, I recently tried doing stand-up shows in English rather than Arabic, which is something I wish to expand upon in the future. Generally, I don’t perform in English in Kuwait. I studied in a government school in Kuwait, so I am not as confident in my English as others who studied in American schools in Kuwait. I only started performing in English after a recent trip to Barcelona, Spain, where I performed in an open-mic stand-up comedy show in English. I will try to further conduct comedy shows abroad in English and expand on my career as a result of this venture.

The post Hamad AlShriaan: The Rising Star of Kuwaiti Stand-Up Comedy appeared first on AGSI.

“After Rain,” Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024, installation view, from left to right: Reem Al Nasser, “Blue Windows” (2022); Sopheap Pich, “Rang Phnom Flower” (2015); Dana Awartani, “Come, Let Me Heal Your Wounds” (2020); Sopheap Pich, Amulet (2015). Photo by Alessandro Brasile, Courtesy of the Diriyah Biennale Foundation.

Under the creative direction of international curator and Singapore’s NTU Centre for Contemporary Art founding director, Ute Meta Bauer, the exhibition, which spans several warehouses in Riyadh’s JAX District as well as open spaces and courtyards in the surrounding area, explores topics such as “the complexity of the environmental crisis and the aftermath of colonialism and extractivism, questions about heritage and conservation, and the sophistication of craft traditions using natural materials.”

Divided across several venues, this multisensory biennale gathers regional and international artists to ponder how communities heal amid collective hardship, how memory and tradition can provide comfort amid rapid change, and how collaborative problem-solving can offer alternative solutions to shared challenges like access to clean water, postwar trauma, and the ongoing consequences of colonialism. Drawing on Ute’s extensive experience in Southeast Asia, the biennale also features a range of artists from the Global South, recentering global artistic narratives by amplifying connections between Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean networks.

Among the many artists participating in this year’s exhibition, pioneering and contemporary Gulf-born or Gulf-based artists stand out for their perceptive interpretation and localization of the show’s themes. Their installations, multimedia visual work, and performances offer viewers a chance to better grasp the evolving regional landscape.

Memory and Materiality

A thread that ties together many of the works of art and projects within “After Rain” is the examination of memory and history in search of guidance through contemporary traumas, destruction, and loss. Works by renowned Gulf artists, such as Dana Awartani, Sara Abdu, and Reem Al Nasser, draw on natural materials and narratives from around the Arab world and Indian Ocean region to contemplate “the complex and often violent histories and circulation routes of natural resources.”

“After Rain,” Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024, installation view: Reem Al Nasser, “Blue Windows” (2022). Photo by Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of Diriyah Biennale Foundation.

Reem Al Nasser is a Saudi artist born and raised in the southern port city of Jizan, a place that deeply influences her creative work. While her practice often looks at human death and the sociocultural rituals that surround it, as well as “the symbols and ways of things, and their meaning in history, astronomy, and archeology,” Reem’s contribution to the biennale, “Blue Windows” (2022), instead examines ecological death.

Her installation consists of charred juniper tree branches encaged in two intricate blue frames. The juniper tree, the branches of which the artist sourced from the mountainous Aseer province in southern Saudi Arabia, is an important natural resource in Abha, typically used in ceremonies and to make juniper tar oil and furniture. However, a fire in Al Jarrah Park in 2021 devastated a lot of greenery in the area, leaving behind charred remnants of the native tree.

In this work, Reem creates a memorial for the juniper tree, its bright blue, embellished coffin resembling the traditional windows of Abha, a color that Reem told AGSIW she believes “is a symbol that expresses the gates of heaven or the blue Ishtar Gate” to the inner city of Babylon. With the cage-like frames and tree charring in her installation, Reem also sees the juniper’s remnants as “a phoenix bird, who dies and lives from his ashes … a symbolic bird full of secrets, transformations, and change.” She added, “This is what I am witnessing in the Aseer region.”

The mournful, somber tone surrounding Reem’s work, as well as the works of other artists in this gallery at the biennale, reflects a deep sense of care and empathy for the ecology of the artist’s hometown. Reem explained, “The concept of this tragic work is rejecting the loss of the departed, as if the departed wanted to be revived, as if it rejected to leave these forests in a tragic way, as if a funerary farewell were being given to it.”

Another work in the “Knowledge in Material and Spiritual Intelligence” gallery is a three-tower installation made of traditional, handmade sidr powder and camphor crystal soap bars by Jeddah-based artist Sara Abdu. Sara’s installation, “Now That I Have Lost You in My Dreams Where Do We Meet?” similarly calls to mind rituals around death and mourning. The soap’s “two ingredients,” as Sara explained, “are the smell of death,” owing to their use in Islamic rituals of corpse washing.

“After Rain,” Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024, installation view: Sara Abdu, “Now That I’ve Lost You In My Dreams Where Do We Meet?” (2021/2024). Photo by Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of Diriyah Biennale Foundation.

Sara told AGSIW, “In this work, a ritual for the living becomes a site for poetic intervention,” as well as a site for “contemplation, reconciliation, and remembrance.” The installation’s title, which is a question that the artist has often asked herself, “looks at intangible spaces, such as dreams, as spaces where new memories can be created, which offers a sense of consolation.”

“In a way, the work is a gentle rebellious act against the reality of mortality through a solid soap structure, an attempt to prevent memory from slipping away,” Sara continued. While the stable, alternating brick-like layout of the soap bars recalls how soap is often laid to cure in traditional soap factories, the gaps remaining between the bars conversely leave room for memories to waft away, reflecting the often-unstable structures and frameworks of memory.

Like Reem’s installation, Sara’s towers use natural materials in a multisensorial way to capture and process a traumatic moment, whether in a personal or collective history, offering viewers “connections that facilitate emotional processing and catharsis,” Sara reflected.

Community Efforts in Environmental Consciousness

Perhaps tying more literally to the exhibition’s theme, another section of the show, “Water and Habitats,” examines the “existential necessity” of water for all life forms as well as the threats posed by dwindling access to clean water in many parts of the world. The works in this gallery also explore the ways that water as a resource has been conserved and shared and, conversely, how it has been misused and weaponized.

“After Rain,” Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024, installation view: Alia Farid, “In Lieu of What Was” (2019); works by Dala Nasser and Suzann Victor in background. Photo by Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of Diriyah Biennale Foundation.

Alia Farid, a Kuwaiti Puerto Rican installation artist and filmmaker, presents “In Lieu of What Was,” consisting of five sculptures molded after Kuwaiti public water fountains and films depicting life in the marshlands of Iraq, where the oil industry has left irreversible damage on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Alia’s fountains are shaped after water towers, traditional clay jugs, and modern plastic bottles and are inspired by the Kuwaiti water fountains, known as “maa sabeel” meaning “water of the street,” dotting the country’s urban landscape and providing drinking water to the public. These fountains are often erected around private homes, near schools, and on street corners to honor deceased loved ones through ongoing charity, reflecting a sense of community in the face of collective difficulty.

At the same time, Alia’s work alludes to the historical conditions that have rendered access to water in Kuwait and other Gulf countries difficult due to dwindling ground and spring water reserves, instead creating a reliance on desalinated water transported and supplied via extensive pipelines. The installation, coupled with the accompanying films, stresses the importance of access to freshwater, which is often limited in places with low precipitation and high levels of heat-induced evaporation like Kuwait.

Glimpses of the Future

“After Rain,” Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024, installation view, Armin Linke & Ahmed Mater: “Saudi Futurism” (2024). Photo by Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of Diriyah Biennale Foundation.

Also featured in the biennale is renowned Saudi artist and cultural pioneer Ahmed Mater who collaborated with Italian filmmaker and photographer Armin Linke for the photographic installation “Saudi Futurism.” The collaboration draws on Armin’s documentary practice examining globalization, urbanization, and industrialization around the world while relying on Ahmed’s more conceptual practice that chronicles Saudi histories and lived realities.

For the biennale, Ahmed and Armin present a series of photographs taken across the kingdom, at sites including a dairy farm, the Aramco archives, a Neom exhibition, and a supercomputer stationed at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, to document the tangible products of technological, scientific, and industrial innovation in the country.

The duo’s multisized images are displayed, at different heights, as an archival maze and printed onto discarded materials from other exhibitions held at the biennale site. On the backs of each plate are details of the image displayed, serving as archival markers to the moments being captured. Additionally, many of the panels feature text, resembling factory-printed wording, with themes such as “Not Yet Existing Archives,” “Sci-fi,” and “CyberPunk.” The vertical railings to which the images are attached enable the images to “theoretically … be switched out or ‘reloaded,’” reflecting the ever-evolving technological and industrial landscape that necessitates rapid and constant adaptation.

In many ways, the exhibition captures a unique moment in the Gulf, observed through various creative and material lenses. Environmental crises, technological innovation, and social change have engendered new conditions and lived realities, which the featured artists have attempted to grapple with or chronicle through their work. While localizing the show’s broader themes to the regional context, the works by Gulf artists also tell a story about colonialism, environmental degradation and fragility, economic exchange, and social change that resonates globally.

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