Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) prepared a variety of free interactive workshops for the 10^thedition of Sikka Art and Design Festival 2022 that launched on 15 March and will continue until 24 March under the theme ‘Celebrating Art, Celebrating Growth.’The Authority is inviting adults and children to participate in these innovative workshops, providing them with an ideal opportunity to hone their skills and discover their creativity.

Over the course of 10 days, Sikka Art and Design Festival 2022 will include a programme of 60 workshops curated by Art Dubai, covering all artistic fields within three categories, visual art, design and new media, with the participation of local and international talents. Through these workshops, Dubai Culture seeks to meet the technical knowledge needs of aspiring young artists and contribute to discovering the talents of young citizens and residents of the UAE for their development.It also seeks to highlight Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood as a cultural tourist destination and encourage tourists to visit it in line with the ‘Dubai Destinations – Dubai Art Season’ campaign launched under the directives of His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Media Council.

Visual arts and design

The series of visual arts workshops include various types of artworks, most notably making models using cardboard, drawing, soap making, Islamic decorations, natural dyes, collage, pottery, origami, and colouring. The design workshops include drawing as well as digital and video collages, in addition to typographical methods, 3D digital design, animation, digital jewellery design and Arabic letter design.

New media

The workshop programme also keeps pace with contemporary media techniques used in the design and production of artworks. It includes sessions on augmented reality in art, design in virtual reality, artistic NFTs, creative coding, Sisyphus robot shaping, video compositing, visual music creation, and interactive media software.

Children’s workshops

The festival will also host a set of workshops for children to help them explore the worlds of doll manufacturing, pottery, and the making of Emirati paper dolls, in addition to skills relating to designing and preserving animal shapes, making animals using origami, drawing and colouring, designing Arabic letter stickers, designing and building robots, and drawing in virtual reality.

Supporting creative entrepreneurs

This year’s programme also includes a series of workshops organised by Dubai Culture in cooperation with its partners LinkedIn and Zoho to support creative entrepreneurs in the emirate and help them understand and develop the skills necessary to launch and manage their businesses, within the framework of the creatives’ journey launched by the Authority in cooperation with the Department of Economy and Tourism to facilitate the establishment of creative businesses.

In this context, Zoho is offering two workshops: the first on 22 March from 8:30 – 9:30 p.m., during which it will provide talents with digital-service consultations; and the second on 24 March, from
7 – 8 p.m., explaining to creative entrepreneurs how to setup their boutiques on Zoho commerce within 30 minutes.

LinkedIn is also presenting two workshops.The first, taking place on 20 March from 7:30 – 8:30 p.m,will showcase the importance of LinkedIn for independent creative freelancers and how it can help them grow their businesses. The second workshop, taking place on 23 March from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.will provide an overview of the e-learning initiative launched by Dubai Culture in partnership with LinkedIn to empower creative businesses with the skills necessary for their businesses to thrive.

Sikka Art & Design Festival 2022 is powered by (du), the Festival’s 5G telecommunications partner.

For more information and to learn about the activities of Sikka Art and Design Festival 2022, you can follow the festival’s official Instagram account @sikkaplatform or its official website for daily updates on its activities.