Art as a corner stone
Hotel manager Donald Bremner says the “cornerstone” for the lifestyle message from Jumeirah Creekside will be its artwork, with the focus on aligning the hotel with bodies and companies in Dubai that share a similar outlook.
“We have a very different position from any other hotel I know of in Dubai using art,” says Bremner. “Dubai Duty Free has curated 482 pieces specifically for the hotel and so we will use that to leverage our difference and that gives us our lifestyle positioning.
[The hotel is] a little bit more modern and contemporary than others, but then we’ll use the art as our starting point and then all of the food and beverage stuff expands from that, so we’ll go to the Film Festival, Art Dubai, fashion shows, we’ll go into media launches, so we will use those as our cornerstones to expand into a lifestyle kind of segment and that’s how we’ll communicate our story. If we’re constantly in the magazines that are promoting film and art and fashion then that will help us build that position.”
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Arts & Culture programme manager Yasmeen Abuamer, who refers to herself as the 483rd piece of art, so absorbed is she in the collection, explains that the quality and uniqueness of the artwork will make the hotel part of the art community in Dubai.
The art collection comprises 482 pieces from 51 artists of 11 wider Middle Eastern nationalities, with 90% of it being commission-based. There are limited-edition pieces in the suites and 79 unique pieces in total; only 10% of the collection has been bought from galleries or art fairs, she reveals.
“I educate guests on the collection and offer them the chance to connect to the thriving arts and culture scene. I’m based in a public space of the hotel, I’m approachable, guests can come and ask me questions, there’s a library with books on art history, contemporary Middle Eastern art, artists in our collection, catalogues from their previous shows. They can ask me for a guided tour ... and I can help them plan an itinerary and send them into the community,” says Abuamer.
Currently, she is in the process of receiving all the artwork — the creators of which have yet to be revealed by Dubai Duty Free and are being kept a closely guarded secret by Abuamer until all the artists can be announced together — and developing guides for her exhibits, but in the future, programming will focus on artists in residency schemes and exhibitions, as well as going beyond the traditional interpretation of art.
“There’s going to be focus on film, fashion, design,” says Abuamer, echoing Bremner. “ There’s excessive programming, we’re planning to use all the facilities in our hotel, the screening room, the outdoor grounds when the weather’s nice for outdoor film screenings, [extending to] the art of cuisine and working with F&B to do activities around that,” she says.
In addition to the art and culture focus, Assman adds that, considering the fact that both the hotel’s owner and operator are home grown Dubai companies, engaging guests with Dubai more generally is also important.
“We want to make sure that when you stay in our hotel it’s not just another corporate hotel, we want to make sure that you connect with Dubai and, therefore, you have a lot of things throughout the hotel which culturally connect you to Dubai.
That goes from the carpets [inspired by] where the Bedouins sat and had lunch and dinner, to the old Arabic doors in some of the rooms over the bed. And that’s very important to us that when you stay as a guest that first of all you call home and say ‘hey darling this is a real different hotel’. It doesn’t matter if you like it or if you don’t, ideally we want people to like it, but it’s different,” says Assman.
“And also on top of that you can say that you learned a bit about Dubai, that you understand that Dubai’s not just the old mud houses with the wind towers like Bastakiya, there’s also a contemporary Dubai, like there’s a contemporary London, New York, there is also contemporary Dubai, it does exist, there’s a huge independent artists scene and that needs to be communicated. We feel it’s our responsibility to do that for Dubai.”
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