Daniel H. Rey is a curator, editor and cultural manager. Between Spanish, Arabic, and Scandinavian languages, he studies the formation of diasporas across territories, climates, and the Internet. His curatorial work focuses on migrant artists, historicizing the idiosyncrasies of Ibero-America and its perception in other latitudes.
Manager of exhibitions, international commissions and artistic residencies, Daniel H. conceived the ‘Valemi’ platform to reactivate the Paraguayan creative economy in a pandemic through the Inter-American Development Bank. He participated in inaugural programs of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project (2017), has commissioned Arab-Hispanic cultural exchanges, and has been a speaker at symposiums with NYU (Abu Dhabi), The Conduit (Oslo-London), CM (Málaga), and the Cultural Industries Forum (Madrid-Buenos Aires). Daniel H. practices as Assistant Curator of Public Programs with Art Jameel in Dubai and is advisor to the board of the Institute of Arab Culture of Colombia in Barranquilla.
What inspired you to become an art curator and focus on connecting Latin American artists with the Arab world?
Connecting Latin American artists with the Arab world is very much a reflection of my own life journey, split between places and overlapping value systems. I grew up in a world of radio studios and a roving family bringing home quite fantastic tales from “far away.” Contemporary art curation became the outlet to tell stories with purpose and rather figure out what “far away” means in a highly interconnected world.
I am a firm believer that the Arab World has a relatability that speaks volumes to folks from across Latin America and the Mediterranean. Therefore, historicizing these relationships through research and exhibitions matters immensely. While we cannot deny the geographical distance between the Arab World and LatAm, there are lots of comparable experiences and histories that I have been observing and do not want to ignore. Curating is my attempt at enunciating that I have been here and there, that I have seen what I have had access to, and that I am not alone in this cultural immersion that has far exceeded my imagination.
Can you share your journey from Colombia to the UAE and how it has influenced your work as an art curator?
I grew up in Asunción, Paraguay to Colombian parents, with a few pivots to Montevideo, Uruguay. All of this, matched with a life-changing few years as a teenager in Norway. Graduating high school in Scandinavia, I was challenged with identifying my next destination for studies and adulthood at large. While I knew there were opportunities in the Americas, the Arab world proved stimulating, challenging, and strategically located. I wanted to learn a language written in a non-Latin script. This happened at the time when many liberal arts colleges from North America were opening in the Gulf and with them, a new wave of grassroots and institutional cultural platforms continued to emerge here.
My work as a curator happens in active dialogue with where I have lived and the communities that have hosted me therein. Today, the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai stands out as one of the hospitable grounds in which my creative practice has developed locally, enabling me in multiple capacities for over four years to wonder and witness: what would happen if the worlds that I have access to could meet…at a programme, at a talk, a youth program, an exhibitions tour? The fascinating trait of a contemporary art space in Dubai is its ability to be a global meeting point, and a nursery of translocal creative relations.
I find it thrilling to see my homes, current and former, meet one another through my research, programming efforts or simply, and most naturally, via reunions with colleagues and friends.
What are some of the unique challenges and opportunities you’ve encountered while promoting Latin American art in the UAE?
For many of us (Latin Americans) a lot of time and energy goes into explaining where we “actually” come from. Nobody is to blame for this. A natural part of finding audiences halfway across the world is to share about one’s background as generously as possible. I do think that there is no need to box ourselves into being the “Latin artist in the Gulf”
there is something playful about being known for what we want to talk about and what we make, more than under the lens of where we come from. I observe that Latin American artists, designers, curators and collectors are having a fuller and more collective awakening looking towards Asia at large. Turkish telenovelas, Abu Dhabi’s museums and Dubai’s art market, Singapore and Hong Kong’s ease of business, and the internet’s proclamation of South Korea and Japan as our polar opposites, are just a few of the ingredients feeding that curiosity.
In turn, many communities in these latitudes may think that all Latin American countries and the Iberian Peninsula share the exact same cultures, preoccupations, or histories, but there is a diversity that needs to be accounted for in who we are and what we are doing in. Culture, be it by contact or consumption, is exactly revealing those nuances. I always banter that this planet is Shakira and Rosalia’s world (and we happen to live in it).
How do you select the artists and artworks that you showcase in your exhibitions?
My independent exhibitions usually happen in grassroots spaces or digitally. The artists that I tend to work with are emerging artists who have not had an opportunity to show work as publicly or massively. I am drawn naturally to creatives who have at least one of my worlds in common, be it through age group, language, or migration.
I feel a sense of proximity, care and responsibility towards artists who have migrated at some point in their lives. There is something admirable about people who have experienced departure.
Can you highlight a few Latin American artists whose work has resonated particularly well with audiences in the UAE?
I find it invigorating that the arts exist in multiple mediums; and Latin Americans have mastered the craft of inserting themselves into creative communities here (and building them) in all sorts of formats. As makers working with materials, wearable objects, and installations of all sizes, Ana Escobar Saavedra and Adrian Pepe, with roots in Colombia and Honduras respectively, stand out. Their work engages materially with the UAE, in Ana’s case, and Lebanon, in Adrian’s case, and it has led them in very groundbreaking directions looking at millennary histories, rituals, faith, trade, and landscapes. Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah have shown an appetite for their work at the gallery, residency, and exhibitions level that I cannot wait to witness further.
Colombian painter Sofia Basto and Venezuelan photographer Andrea Salerno have thoroughly built a studio practice that is not limited to a home, but very attuned with landscapes locally and regionally. Sofia’s field trips in the UAE and Saudi Arabia have propelled the research and paintings of her works now present in collections from Bogota to Paris to Dubai. Andrea has become an unapologetic wizard of the lens, with many avenues for feminist photography in Pakistan, given its proximity to the UAE. Not far from them, Brazilian artists Elizabeth Dorazio and Fabiola Chiminazzo have nurtured rich visual vocabularies through their work, as part of the first cohort of NYU Abu Dhabi’s Master of Fine Arts program. Their research, showcases at noteworthy institutions, and their vocation as creative instigators is commendable. Emerging alongside them, Liliana Abaúnza Chagín is a fellow instigator developing a collection of contemporary jewelry made in Colombia with plants native to the Gulf, provoking us to ponder how nature is both preserved, worn and transformed in the age of rapid development.
Today, Dubai’s music scene has been nurtured by DJ PHO, who by the day goes by Leonardo Rojas. PHO has brought to Dubai some of the freshest, rawest sounds from Colombia’s regions, matched with state-of-the-art equipment that has earned him the trust of global brands, arts platforms and production houses as their cross-regional representative.
In the design world, we owe plenty of our new vocabulary for visual culture to Uruguayan graphic designer Fermín Guerrero who, from his tenure at the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, is thinking massively about typography, color and graphic identity with city, place, built environment and English-Arabic bilingualism at heart. In this urban spirit, Brazilian muralists Tarsila Schubert, Eduardo Kobra and most recently Mikhaela Martin have made sure to leave a legacy on the built environment in Dubai through splashes of color and original iconography, also working with reputable brands in the region.
From a collecting standpoint, my soft observations gravitate to Argentina-born Tomas Saraceno, whose installations graced my student years at the NYU Abu Dhabi Library, as well as the occasional shows by Peruvian artist Ishmael Randall-weeks and Brazilian artist Ana Mazzei in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue. I equally highlight Dubai’s love for the late Fernando Botero, whose Horse 2007 by the Burj Khalifa sits in my head as a symbolic guardian of downtown Dubai that triggers my homely nostalgia of Colombia.
What role do you see art playing in bridging cultural gaps between Latin America and the Arab world?
The arts are able to connect us through our humanity without constant pressure to engage in financial transactions. If we look at trade, commerce, or digital content between our two regions, those are definitely connectors, but they often involve us as consumers and do not always allow for us to take a step back to first be witnesses, spectators, listeners… storytellers. The arts are that space of mediation, of contact, wherein presence and exposure far precede commercial consumption.
If we are to discuss collecting, in Dubai I envision a contemporary art landscape that in a few years will hopefully have many more artists from Latin America represented by local galleries and at art fairs. There is a rich legacy of artists reaching the Gulf via Art Dubai, Abu Dhabi Art, Design Doha, Dubai Design Week, the Sharjah Biennial and Sharjah Architecture Triennale, BIENALSUR’s edition in Saudi Arabia, and more. The arrival of more curators and cultural agents from LatAm to the Gulf would help consolidate us as what Dr. Hernán D. Caro calls an “immense minority,” when looking at our diaspora in Berlin. Each of our countries has a few hundreds or thousands of people here, and as a collective we are making an ever-growing and undeniable mark.
How do you incorporate elements of both Latin American and Arab cultures in your curated exhibitions?
I struggle to group things or label them as Latin and Arab. Their boundaries and geographies are extremely fluid, but there is something about understanding that each of these regions carries a polyphony of voices and forms of living within them. So, I am not looking for the Latin in the Arab and the Arab in Latin, I am looking for both, the “lárabe” and the “lعtin”. I am looking for the fluidity between them. I believe in remixes, in the power that they hold. I am a remix myself, and that is something that my work is constantly thinking about.
How has the response from the local art community and general public been towards your efforts in showcasing Latin American art?
Audiences, especially in Dubai and the Gulf, have been curious, keen and open to learn about Latin American stories. Some people warmly say that we are long-lost cousins given our commonalities, and that is wonderful. Through my independent work, I have had a gradual process introducing makers of a diverse region to a fellow diverse region. Before me, many other Latin Americans have opened the doors and fertilized the ground. My reference point goes back to Luz Salem Villamil, a Bogota-born cultural manager active since the early 2000s who transformed how we experience cinema in Dubai and was the first to curate Latin American film festivals.
What advice would you give to emerging Latin American artists looking to break into the art scene in the UAE and the broader Gulf region?
Latin American artists should first find each other here, and embrace the fact that they work creatively in a diasporic setting, essentially away from home. This is a region where people move in and out frequently. It is worthwhile to catch each other, to overlap, and to ask who has been around and what they have done. Diplomatic missions are also taking note, more and more, of the skillsets we bring, our contributions to the creative landscape here, and the ambassadorial role of the arts.
There are undeniable opportunities around us and the challenge is not to engage with them through talent or creativity, but rather through consistency. My invitation to Latin American artists setting foot in the Gulf is to understand that, before representing our countries or mother tongues, we need to first develop a vocabulary of our own personal work that does not force us into existing cultural narratives, but rather enables us to share who we are as individuals. My more capricious encouragement is to embrace the languages spoken in the UAE and the Gulf. Hardly ever does one have the opportunity to hear and learn Arabic as well embrace conversations in Urdu, Malayalam, Hindi, Tagalog, Farsi and many more languages. When I leave the house, I enjoy matching my hola with expressions that genuinely ground me to where I live.
(C) Latin&Gulf 2024
