Day I

My watch was showing 3 am when I opened my eyes with the light of the dawn, on the plane to Dubai. “What a surreal life”, I thought. It was completely dark at 3.30 pm in Glasgow. Just for a second, couldn’t stop myself from imagining a life that I go to bed at 3pm and get up at 3am in the morning. Funny.

The overview landscape of Dubai was incredibly unreal, with the lace like roundabouts, longest motorways almost depicting a drawing. Obviously the city itself was a huge project, but almost a daring Robert Smithson work that is possessed and inhabited by thousands.

My plane landed and I was greeted right away with a bunch of beautiful flowers. I felt like a turkey swelling from pride, it was very flattering.

Khalil and Noora welcomed me in Bastakiya -already my favourite location in Dubai- introduced me  first with Alexandra, the curator in residence, and then my room along with a new life saver sim card, and showed the group of studios located quite near our individual, tiny and lovely en-suite houses.

First thing, I placed my eyeflute by the window. Tried to compare the light with the one in Glasgow (Well, it is difficult to capture any daylight in Glasgow, but when I could, it is silver) The light notes I could get into my eyeflute were literally salmon pink here, quite impressive.

a present from my life and work collaborator, Tom, for my  journey

Then I met with Magdi, other residency artist and had a lovely chat in the kitchen. After a while, Alexandra and I went for a little walk by the creek. Walked through maybe 80 fabric shops. It was the moment I love, because one would get shocked or surprised the most mainly on the first day; since on the following months, there always follows the inevitable feeling of “getting used to it”. So I am trying to make most out of the joy of ‘wide eyedness’.