By Noor Al-Mansoori ~
Far out in the centre of the Gulf, where high modernity and tradition harmoniously combine, Bahrain’s capital Manama hums as a hotbed of cultural capital. Its Islamic architecture and pearling industry heritage aside, though, the city is currently dropping the ferocity of an arts renaissance of international proportions in the face of world-class museums, world-class contemporary galleries, and a fresh wave of young, emerging Bahraini artists eager to leave their stamps.
From theittering facade of Bahrain National Museum—a gem in Kingdom records—to small, intimate, independent ones such as the La Fontaine Centre for Contemporary Art, Manama is being transformed into a canvas of rebirth, debate, and cultural preservation. They are not clinging to history—they are making it.
Since its establishment in 1988, the Bahrain National Museum is a dauntless declaration of this island nation’s commitment to preserving its thousand-year heritage. Its displays range from artifacts of ancient Dilmun civilization to interactive recreations of pearl diving and national legend. And in still more recent history, it has gone further forward into the future by serving as a support unit to contemporary art exhibitions, international curatorship projects, and digital humanities projects. It has become crossroads that have placed it at the center of learning through the generations.
Meanwhile, venues like The Art Centre of the Bahrain Authority for Culture & Antiquities (BACA) are setting up a new generation of creatives and are providing residencies, workshops, and cultural exchange. BACA launched its new program “Future Creatives”, a national talent incubator with mentoring and exhibition opportunities for young emerging visual artists under the age of 30 in 2023.
“Here is tremendous momentum,” declares Fatima Al-Kooheji, a Manama-based art historian and curator. “There is an increasing awareness that Bahraini narratives—presented by sculpture, digital art installations, film, and performance—become important on an international level.”
They have also existed independently as museums. Al Riwaq Art Space, beginning in 1998, has persisted in leading alternative art, from time to time showing experimental and socially engaged work in solitary existence. Its biennial shows and outreach activities have provoked local commotion and artist participation from across the Arab world.
The cultural growth of Manama is policy-oriented, too. The Kingdom of Bahrain Vision 2030 allocates the creative economy as being among the sustainable instruments of diversification. New museums, cultural tourism, and education are on the list. Bahrain has been a model case in the Arab region of preservation of heritage and engagement in culture, since UNESCO has made use of it.
Perhaps most encouraging of this renaissance is that it includes all. New ventures, like the ArtBAB Fair (Art Bahrain Across Borders), pulled everyone’s art into its fold by exposing local artists to overseas markets. Traditional art and creative art were being included in the curriculum of public schools and pop-up art galleries in souqs and city streets are turning life into an artwork.
With its past and its forward-looking ambitions, Manama is re-making the textbook on how to be a 21st-century cultural capital. And with fresh new young creative fire still very much thriving in the shadow of institutions that care about heritage but want to set the lead by way of innovation, Bahrain’s cultural heritage appears not so much conserved—but somehow, somehow magically, re-lit.
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