São Paulo – A project launched this week by the government of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is turning metro stations into art museums showcasing creations with various themes. The goal is to entertain local and foreign passengers during the trips. The information was supplied by the Emirates News Agency (WAM).
The initiative of Dubai’s ruler, the emir Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, is designed to create an artistic environment to inspire creativity and innovation into the 500,000 people who pass through the emirate’s metro stations daily.
“The United Arab Emirates has been playing a vital role in supporting arts in the Arab region and in the world for years. The UAE provides a cultural bridge that links the east to the west. Art is a universal language that has the power to unite humanity and bring people from different languages, nationalities and cultures together. It removes barriers that seems to separate them from one another,” said Maktoum, according to WAM.
The first phase of the project includes transforming four metro stations into art museums, each with a different theme.
The Islamic art and Arabic Calligraphy Museum will include a collection of artworks inspired by the Islamic art and its development phases over 1,400 years. Manuscripts, ceramics and jewellery will be some of the items on display which highlight the art and cultural aspects of the times they represent. Calligraphy paintings will also be on display to give visitors a taste of the Arabic calligraphy art and its development through the different ages.
Inventions Museum will offer the visitors from different ages a unique and interactive educational experience that illustrates the most important human inventions in different fields such as engineering, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, geography and many other fields. It will also include the contribution of the most important inventors in human history from all ages including the very age we live in.
The Contemporary Art Museum will offer a unique and comprehensive view on modern art through a collection which reflects the sense of contemporary creative expression. It will have paintings, designs, graphic illustrations, models, and many other items that reflect the expressive and intellectual styles which have been created by contemporary artists from different parts of the world.
Visual Art Museum will highlight the contemporary visual art scene through screening movies and documentaries, and displaying multimedia content of cultural and artistic essence. The visual art museum will give its visitors the opportunity to share their work and have it on display as well.
Train wagons should also be turned into art installations. According to WAM, the project should be completed in eleven months.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
