Writer Nadia Christidi was awarded Art Jameel Commissions: Arts Writing and Research and will use her three-month residency at the Writer’s Studio and Jameel Library to support to develop a publication looking at impending water crises, and the present plans and future planning scenarios that have emerged in response.

Come meet Jameel Arts Centre’s first Writer in Residence and learn more about how she is responding to the Jameel’s curatorial themes of confluence, museology and the GCC, and the institution’s position on the Dubai Creek. Her approach takes in a wide variety of source material including fiction, art, science fiction, speculative design and governmental policy. During her residency, Christidi will instigate, host and participate in public events at Jameel Library, engaging the local community and sharing her work in progress.

This event is organised in collaboration with the Ocean Archive initiative inviting arts and culture organisations worldwide to participate in Climate Justice for a Living Ocean— a network of autonomous events to be held on September 28, 2019. These events are prompted by the release of the forthcoming Special Report on the Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, to be issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Nadia Christidi is a Syrian, Palestinian, and Greek researcher, writer, and arts practitioner based between Cambridge, MA and Beirut, Lebanon. Her work explores the political and economic dimensions of environmental imaginaries, earth sciences, and their representation in literature, art, and design. She has exhibited at Beirut Art Center; SALT Galata, Istanbul; and SALT Ulus, Ankara. Nadia was previously Assistant Director at Beirut Art Center and Interpretation and Learning Lead at Darat al Funun, Amman, and has worked on exhibition projects with Ashkal Alwan and the Young Arab Theatre Fund. Her writing has been published by Arteeast, ArtAsiaPacific, and TandemWorks. Nadia holds a BA in History of Art (2006) from Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania and an MA in Historical Studies (2015) from the New School for Social Research, New York. She is currently a PhD candidate in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society at MIT.