Jameel Arts Centre’s public programme includes inviting the community to engage with artists, curators and other practitioners through tours, talks, debates and symposia in Dubai. While some events shed light on current exhibitions and projects, others are inspired by the Centre’s role as a hub in the region – InTransit Talks, for instance, feature a diverse roll of international arts professionals.

Jameel Library is imagined as a ‘home from home’ for the UAE’s itinerant reading groups, collectives and zines; many of these discussions are also open to the public. The various exhibitions and projects formats make connections between and expand on themes within and beyond Jameel Arts Centre’s programmes.

THE ESSENTIAL… is a new series of conversations, hosted at the Jameel by Shumon Basar, where notable guests share the foundations of what they do, how they think — and the path that got them where that is. They list the books, films, albums, interviews, essays and anything else that proved formative in their own making, and which they’d pass on to future generations to discover anew. Since influences pass through time like gravitational waves, THE ESSENTIAL… becomes an intimate opportunity to be inspired by inspiration itself. Less concerned with historical canons, THE ESSENTIAL… is more like an open syllabus, annotated with autobiographical asides.