Art is for Everybody at Reem Park

Bring art out of the museums, in the middle of people, create a spontaneous enjoyment rather than a contrived one, make urban spaces more attractive and improve the lives of people that use those spaces. These are the ideas that drove Aldar Properties, in collaboration with Abu Dhabi Art, to call upon Emirate-based artist Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim and the collective formed by Iranian artists residing in Dubai, Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian. The public space they worked in is Reem Park in Abu Dhabi, a park spanning a million square metres, opened recently, on the island of the same name. The artists worked their magic on columns, stairways and playing fields. Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim created walls conceived like pages of a book, that can be read in both directions. The collective painted the 24 columns that surround the 2400-square-metre skatepark and to do so, they drew inspiration from the local culture, pre-Islamic poetry, the collections of the Louvre of Abu Dhabi and the Etihad Museum, creating a highly varied and colourful graffiti that represents a dialogue between space and art. All the artists enjoyed immense artistic freedom in carrying out the works and, during the work itself, they were quite skilled at gathering up the suggestions that the space itself offered to their creations, as well as those from visitors to the park, leading to a sort of living art work in open dialogue with the public.