New public art revealed at Abu Dhabi's Reem Park

Site-specific urban artworks were commissioned for the newly opened park on Reem Island

This painted staircase adds a vibrant touch to Reem Central Park. Courtesy Aldar Properties

Abu Dhabi now has its own series of public artworks, which have been placed in Reem Central Park, as part of wider efforts to enhance the emirate’s urban landscape.

Local artists Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim, Ramin Haerizadeh, Roki Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian were commissioned to create site-specific pieces for the 93,000-square-metre park, which opened on the UAE’s National Day in 2018 at Reem Island.

This follows a commission for the 600-metre mural at Al Raha Beach, and other artworks within buildings owned by Aldar Properties PJSC, which is sponsoring the efforts in partnership with Abu Dhabi Art, under the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.

For these particular public artworks, the artists were inspired by the park’s multicultural visitors, as well as pre-Islamic poetry, Arabic folklore and motifs found on items in Louvre Abu Dhabi and Etihad Museum collections.

They can be found on the 24 pillars that surround the skate park, staircases, four playgrounds and four bollard walls.

“The commissioned artists are some of the most important living in the UAE today,” says Abu Dhabi art director, Dyala Nusseibeh.

Ibrahim says the five walls he put his work on in Reem Park have been conceived as pages in a book, which can be read in either direction.

“Art is an encounter that should expand beyond the museum or gallery to become part of everyday life and welcome different perspectives," he said. "It is this important point that Reem Park speaks to; families, friends, children all come and play in the park. They are able to read or interpret each wall in their own way. They can picnic near the walls and I hope, enjoy a story that has been created for them.

“These works are open-ended conversations and it is the public, the community around the park that can now continue these conversations in their own way,” he added.

Ramin, Rokin and Rahmanian are part of a collective, and the three artists spent time observing people in the park before working on their pieces.

“We also began viewing this public space as also being, in essence, an interior or domestic one and the concept of a majlis, which is effectively a public space in the home, consequently began to take on significance," said the trio in a statement.

"With these thoughts in mind, we drew on motifs that belong to interiority, for example from porcelains. Some repetitive patterns came into play, such as those inspired by the act of skateboarding. And we looked to literature like Mu'llaqatt to elicit a mood of contemplation.

“We were given a space that is culturally active. And since the invitation for this project came with a lot of artistic freedom, we decided to take our studio into the public, observe and study the diversity of it and be responsive to people's interactions.”