World Weather Network 

Art Jameel is one of 28 arts organisations from around the world forming the World Weather Network, a global ‘weather reporting’ project running since June 2022.

‘World Weather’ amplifies our understanding of weather and connects the voices of artists and lived experience in a climate crisis without precedent. Mindful of complex atmospheric concerns and caring for our global co-habitants, the World Weather Network shares different weather realities – broadcast from each station in the network- to raise the voice of the arts in our times of crisis.Working with artists and engaging scientists, environmentalists and concerned communities, the World Weather Network brings together diverse world views and different knowledge systems, localities and languages.

Art Jameel’s weather station, broadcasting from the Jameel Arts Centre, explores atmospheric humidity-  a central climatic marker of the Arabian Gulf- through a specially commissioned five episode podcast titled Relative Humidity featuring Noush Anand, Nadim Choufi, Nadine Khalil and Isaac Sullivan, Nidhi Mahajan, and Deepak Unnikrishnan.

Our physical weather stations are in the form of air-to-water generators, located in the public spaces around the centre and providing visitors with fresh drinking water and insights into daily humidity and weather conditions. 

On June 21, 2022 the World Weather Network launched with the performance Word Weathers, a day-long, writing exchange organised by Te Tuhi art space in Aotearoa New Zealand. Over forty voices from around the world participated in the live event, including UAE-based artists Moza Almatrooshi and Sree. 

On October 9, 2022, Art Jameel hosted the Dubai iteration of the ceremony To Burn, Forest, Fire by artist Katie Paterson in collaboration with WWN member IHME Helsinki.  Visit the project archive here.

Throughout June and July 2023, Art Jameel and Te Tuhi (Aotearoa New Zealand) have collaborated on a display of work by Nujoom Alghanem for the exhibition Huarere: Weather Eye, Weather Ear, curated by artist and climate scholar Janine Randerson. Te Tuhi and Art Jameel invited artist Nujoom Alghanem to present works drawn from her documentary film Honey, Rain and Dust (2016) focusing on local beekeepers and their experiences domesticating bees as well as hunting for honey.  A parallel display of Nujoom’s work and research was presented at the Jameel Lobby from 15 June to 30 July, 2023.

In the fall of 2023, World Weather Network presents a specially produced film Under the Weather, featuring Dubai-based artist Ana Escobar Saavedra, among a variety of artists nominated by fellow member institutions. Together, the artists narrate a personal and intimate exploration of the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss today, as well as its relationship to cultural and artistic practice.

In June of 2024, marking two years of the World Weather Network, Art Jameel hosted the Online Forum: Maximum Humidity, exploring environmental futures in the region through the lens of humidity, sweat and water –featuring nadim choufi, Dalia Khalife, Nadine Khalil, Nadia Christidi, Michael Christopher Low and Natalie Koch.  Maximum Humidity was livestreamed and can be viewed on Art Jameel’s Youtube channel.

Maximum Humidity featured the lecture-performance The View from Above Takes My Breath Away – Fully by artist nadim choufi, which traces how environmental concerns framed as universal become counter-intuitively hyperlocal, situating the Middle East as a crossroads region where global environmental decisions converge. The session also featured a talk and performative reading of I woke up a sweaty human by artist Dalia Khalife, in conversation with curator Nadine Khalil wherein they questioned the relationship between sweat and the wider infrastructural and environmental conditions that generate it. Finally, the Online Forum marked the publication launch of Liquid Dreams by scholar Nadia Christidi in conversation with Professor and Director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah Michael Christopher Low and Syracuse University Professor and political geographer Natalie Koch. Liquid Dreams is the culmination of Nadia’s residency at the Jameel Arts Centre in 2019 as part of Art Jameel’s Arts Writing and Research commission. Liquid Dreams explores water imaginaries in the U.A.E, combining archival and historical research with speculative writing and includes four essays, each on Crops, Clouds, Icebergs and Genes, along with the author’s introduction and illustrations by Joseph Kai.

–

A final message from the World Weather Network – 21 June 2024:

From June 2022 to June 2024, 28 organisations from around the world collaborated on the World Weather Network.  During this time, this online platform hosted a constellation of weather stations, featuring works by artists and writers invited to reflect on their local weather by partner network around the globe. This website is a record of this activity. ⁠ Over the next 12 months, the World Weather Network will draw to a close. All commissioned artworks and accompanying conversations will be available on our online platform until May 2025. The archive of conversations will be available on the World Weather Network YouTube channel. ⁠
⁠
Thank you to all those who have supported this programme.
⁠
– Partner Statement, 24 June 2024⁠

Participating weather stations: 

ARTANGEL, London

ARTINGENIUM, San Sebastián

ART JAMEEL, Dubai

ART SONJE CENTER, Seoul

BUNDANON, New South Wales

DHAKA ART SUMMIT, Bangladesh

ENOURA OBSERVATORY, Japan

NICOLETTA FIORUCCI FOUNDATION, Grasse

FOGO ISLAND ARTS, Newfoundland

FONDAZIONE SANDRETTO RE REBAUDENGO, Torino

HOLT-SMITHSON FOUNDATION, New Mexico

ICELANDIC ARTS CENTRE, Reykjavik

IHME HELSINKI, Helsinki

KHOJ, New Delhi

MALI, Lima

MCAD, Manila

NEON, Athens

NGO, Johannesburg

WAAG, Amsterdam

RUYA FOUNDATION, Iraq

SAHA, Istanbul

SOPHIA POINT, Guyana

TERRA FOUNDATION, Comporta

TE TUHI, Aotearoa / New Zealand 

UCCA, Beijing / Qinhuangdao 

YINKA SHONIBARE FOUNDATION, Lagos / Ijebu

32 DEGREES EAST, Uganda