Cuadro

The Residency at Cuadro operates in partnership with Fairmont The Palm, Dubai. It is a three-month program, offering a select group of local and international artists accommodation and studio space in which to expand their practice. Cuadro works closely with the artists to meet their creative and professional needs, providing career mentorship and exhibition opportunities.

Faig Ahmed (b. 1982 Baku, Azerbaijan)
Artist-in-Residency - January, 2014

Faig Ahmed has continued his reinterpretation of traditional Azerbaijani rugs while in residency. In an attempt to disassemble the carpets’ conventional structure the artist superimposes digital patterns onto traditional composition. These combinations create rugs with bold optical illusions or transform the carpets into unconventional sculptural forms.

 Faig Ahmed graduated from the Sculpture faculty at the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Art in Baku in 2004. He was chosen to represent Azerbaijan inaugural pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 and again at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2013. The Victoria and Albert Museum shortlisted Ahmed for the 3rd Jameel Prize in 2013.

Olivia Arthur (b. 1980 London, England)
Artist-in-Residency October, 2013

Olivia Arthur marries a real-life tragedy with a fictitious narrative to uniquely highlight the effects of Dubai’s rapid evolution on the everyday lives of the city’s residents.

 Inspired by the story of the MV Dara, a ship that sank near the Dubai port in 1961, Arthur imagined a survivor of the incident making the journey back to Dubai more than fifty years later. During her residency, the artist captured a series of images cataloguing Dubai’s industrial arm domesticating the desert and sea from the perspective of a castaway who has lived at the mercy of those natural elements.

 Olivia Arthur received a degree in mathematics from Oxford University in 2002, a diploma in photojournalism from the London College of Printing in 2003 and a scholarship from Fabrica in 2006. In 2008 she joined Magnum photos as a nominee and became an associate in 2011. She has received numerous awards including the Vic Odden Award, Royal Photographic Society in 2010 and Laureate Photographe, Foundation Jean-Luc Lagardere, Paris in 2008.