Ras al Khaimah

We were hosted by Al-Qasimi Foundation in Ras Al Khaimah to learn about the reverse gender gap in education in the UAE.

Dubai

At Jameel Arts Centre, the recently opened contemporary arts institution, we had a moderated discussion with Uns Kattan, Program Manager, about what it means to be a foundation that is open to the public in Dubai.

Sharjah

During our trip to Sharjah, Mahnaz Fancy, Senior Program Officer at Sharjah Architecture Triennial, walked us through the Sharjah Architecture Triennial exhibition curated by Adrian Lahoud titled “The Rights of Future Generations”.

Abu Dhabi

During this trip, we toured Qasr Al Hosn, the oldest building in the city of Abu Dhabi which belonged to the ruling Al Nahyan family.

Dubai

Can malls be understood as anything more than bastions of capitalist consumption? We travelled to Mall of the Emirates and walked around to observe the activities that take place in the mall and reflect on our own embodied experience of walking through the different spaces in it.

Dubai

What does it mean to make home and work in the context of an emergent global city? We met with Jumana Darwish, founder of Happy Box UAE, in Barsha park, a public park in the center of Dubai.

Dubai

Our class traveled to Dubai to explore the first ever Women’s Pavilion at the Dubai Expo 2020.

Abu Dhabi

Turning to the ways in which boys and men are implicated in policy discourses and practices often focused on women’s empowerment and work, we received Natasha Ridge, Executive Director of Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research, in our classroom.

Dubai

At Jameel Arts Centre the class took a tour of a series of women artists’ curated rooms, and of the inaugural exhibition Crude, which takes oil as an entrance into the complex histories of social and economic interconnections within and beyond the GCC.

Sharjah

Visiting Sharjah and meeting with Mahnaz Fancy, Senior Program Officer at Sharjah Architecture Triennial, students had the chance to critically engage with the UAE’s built environment.

Abu Dhabi

Touring the Roads of Arabia provided grounds for class discussion of both the exhibition’s content and curation.

Riyadh-Abu Dhabi

The class had a chance to discuss how women’s mobility features large in discourses around women’s work in the GCC and particularly Saudi Arabia with Jawaher Al Sudairy, Director of the recently created Center for Research at Al Nahda Foundation

Abu Dhabi

Our visit to the General Women’s Union—a federal body, founded in 1975, documenting and promoting women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship in the UAE—allowed students to witness forms of state feminism in action.

Dubai

H.E. Shamsa Saleh spoke to our class and other invited guests about the work she and the establishment have done to improve gender balance in and beyond Dubai.

Dubai

After gaining a bird’s-eye view of women’s work—from reading sociological texts on elites, policy reports, and visiting the Federal Authority for Government Human Resources—the class transitioned from statistics to the home studio of Daneh Bouahmed, a Dubai-based Saudi designer.

Dubai

At FAHR, the government entity that monitors the composition of the federal government workforce, students engaged in a lively conversation with H.E. Aisha Khalifa Al Suwaidi.

Dubai

Orit Mohammed, the founder and CEO of Boon Coffee shared her life journey with students starting with her formative years in Ethiopia, moving to the US for education, and then the UAE at a later in her life.

Dubai

Established in 2015, the UAE Gender Balance Council is responsible for developing and implementing the country’s “gender balance” agenda. The federal entity's primary objectives include reducing the country’s gender gap, empowering women across all sectors and increasing the UAE’s global competitiveness in gender equality.

Dubai

How is the story of the UAE told and by whom? Our Spring and Fall Semester classes traveled to Dubai to explore the history of the UAE through the stories of Emirati women at the Women’s Museum.Students were led on an intimate tour of the exhibitions and learned about the museum’s founder, Dr. Rafia Ghubash, and her vision to create a space in the UAE that showcased the “intellectual role women play in education, economics and politics”.

Dubai

During her virtual class talk, Farah Al Qasimi discussed her recent commission, which explored the invisible labor of women in the cycle of creation and consumption. She also elaborated on her engagement with public response to her current and past exhibits, which furthered student understanding of reflexivity in art creation and knowledge production more broadly.