Salem AlSuwaidi: Creating Dialogue and Camaraderie Across the Gulf

Driven by building – not observing – history, Salem AlSuwaidi is always up for a conversation. Aided by a background in politics and geography, the Emirati curator and writer is focused on challenging cultural narratives and shaping creative infrastructure on a grassroots level across the GCC, weaving together questions of nationalism and identity. And true to his generation, the journey of this 24-year-old began not in a museum, but online.

It was a Covid-era panel discussion on creative initiatives that inspired him, as it illustrated that institutional backing wasn’t a prerequisite to get started professionally in the arts. “That was my first introduction to what grassroots activities can look like in the GCC,” he recalls. AlSuwaidi references influences like Gaith Abdulla and Afra Al Dhaheri for their “addictive” love and care for the community, and Sultan Al Qassemi for his “unapologetically Arab advocacy”.

The curator quickly moved from conversation to creation, founding SWALIF (a contemporary art and literature collective rooted in dialogue) and co-founding MamarLab (an arts and urbanism research space). His work is a reflection of the community he lives in, focused on developing a practice motivated by sociocultural critique and a “rewiring of Khaleeji and, more broadly, Arab narratives”.

His defining projects balance critical theory with immense labour. He recently curated his first solo exhibition for friend Talal Al Najjar, a project that challenged his baseline aesthetics. Another major milestone is his upcoming book with Rashad Al Mulla and co-editor Kevin Mitchell, Future of Gulf Housing, featuring over 20 academic and creative contributions exploring housing across the GCC. “This project was two years of sweat and pain, my biggest publishing project to date, all wrapped into a juicy and intensely bound publication.” 

For AlSuwaidi, art is an ongoing negotiation between critical thought, collective narrative, and cultural memory. “I don’t curate work in or from the SWANA region just because of my proximity to it,” he explains. “It is a philosophical upbringing.” He describes his mission as one of forensic deconstructivism: breaking apart and reassembling the ways knowledge is received, produced, and shared.

“We’ve fallen victim to prescribed methodologies—how to think, what to value, how to care,” he continues. “I hope we can act critically not only about the works made around us, but also those made by us.” It’s this reflexive ethos that drives his curatorial practice, whether in exhibitions, public programming, or editorial projects. Each endeavour is an invitation to reimagine Arab and Khaleeji narratives through layered, self-aware dialogue.

AlSuwaidi hopes the region’s creative scene embraces more cross-border collaboration and pushes itself further. His own ambitions are high. In the short term, he dreams of curating a major show featuring artists like Sophia Al Maria and Akram Zaatari and eventually producing a corresponding publication. Further afield, he hopes to represent the UAE Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale. In the long term, however, his goal is simple: “I’d like to relax more.” 

For now, he remains focused on the necessary, rigorous work of shaping a contemporary narrative. “The need to build more history, to constantly redefine our collective narrative, to articulate a thought in a voice that sounds familiar is what keeps me moving,” he reflects. Ultimately, his work is a lifelong exercise in revising what cultural infrastructure in the Gulf can be: participatory, self-critical, and radically alive.