A Slice of Life

Case study/Gulf Photo Plus, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai/7 September – 11 November 2022/Curator and producer

The Project

2,257 photographs from 19 countries on one question: what does food say about who we are? Gulf Photo Plus and National Geographic Al Arabiya put MENA food culture on the gallery wall.

In 2022 Gulf Photo Plus partnered with National Geographic Al Arabiya — the Pan-Arab edition of National Geographic, published by Abu Dhabi Media — to produce Loqmat 3ysh / A Slice of Life, a community open-call exhibition examining food culture across the Middle East and North Africa.

GPP led end-to-end: open-call concept, curation, design, bilingual wall text, production, installation, opening night, public programme and post-show admin. From open-call launch to opening night: five weeks.

Client: National Geographic Al Arabiya Magazine
Venue: Gulf Photo Plus, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai
Dates: 7 September – 11 November 2022
GPP's role: Curator and producer

01 / The brief

Make MENA food culture canonical.

Nat Geo Al Arabiya wanted a community exhibition that supported emerging and established MENASA-region photographers; told topical stories that resonate with the region's culture and youth; familiarised audiences with the National Geographic brand and its Arabic edition; and generated fresh content for the magazine's print, social and editorial channels.

Theme: food culture and cuisines. Venue: GPP's gallery at Alserkal Avenue. Dates: 7 September – 11 November 2022. Source: signed project agreement, 9 June 2022.

Wanted to pause for a moment and thank you and the GPP team for delivering such a great show and overall amazing activation, including all the deliverables. My goal was to get participation of our MENA audience presented to a culturally diverse community in Dubai — and I believe the show was very successful at doing that. The show was such a great highlight for us in 2022.

Hussain AlMoosawi, Acting Editor-in-Chief, National Geographic Al Arabiya (25 November 2022)

02 / The challenge

Five weeks. Two languages. Every line.

From open-call launch on 1 August to opening night on 7 September: 38 days. In that window GPP ran the call (closing 20 August), selected the show (23 August), produced exhibition identity and wall text in English and Arabic, printed and framed 40 works in three formats, installed the gallery, ran the opening, and shipped a microsite and virtual tour for remote audiences.

Every line — wall text, captions, social copy, the press release — had to ship bilingually. Selection had to balance gender, identity, background and nationality across emerging and established practice while still meeting National Geographic's editorial bar.

03 / Our approach

End-to-end curation in two languages.

GPP framed the show around "Loqmat 3ysh" — the regional Arabic phrases that bind livelihood to a staple food: bread in Egypt, couscous in Algeria, rice in the Gulf. Selected work spanned farms in mountainous Sinai, hydroponic warehouses in the Dubai desert, dining tables in Morocco, car bonnets in Saudi Arabia, cafeteria benches in Qatar and living-room sheets across the region.

GPP's role was end-to-end: identity, theme and curatorial premise; the open call (design, backend, admin); selection; exhibition design and production; the opening night and the public programme; bilingual wall text and captions; marketing and dissemination; the microsite and virtual tour; deinstallation and post-show admin. Critique-night judges: Mohamed Somji (GPP), Hussain AlMoosawi (Nat Geo Al Arabiya), and food photographer Andrea Salerno Jacome — who also led the food-photography workshop.

The Exhibition

The work, installed.

Opening Night

300+ joined us for opening night.

On 7 September 2022 the gallery filled with photographers, editors, food writers and the diaspora that fed the show. The exhibition opening overlapped Alserkal Lates, embedding the show in the wider Dubai cultural calendar.

Virtual Tour

Walk the exhibition from anywhere.

We built a microsite and a full 3D virtual tour of the show, so audiences could walk A Slice of Life from anywhere in the world — and still can, long after the prints came down.

2,257

Photographs submitted to the open call

Countries represented in submissions

70+

Photographers exhibited

50+

Prints in the show

Days at GPP, Alserkal

403,641

Profile impressions on Instagram

Outcomes

What it delivered.

Hussain AlMoosawi, Acting Editor-in-Chief at National Geographic Al Arabiya, called the show "a great highlight for us in 2022" and "a best practice for a Nat Geo Al Arabiya activation."
Editorial coverage on National Geographic Al Arabiya's own site (2 September 2022) and a feature in Arab News (15 September 2022).
Cross-amplification across National Geographic Al Arabiya's regional Instagram and Facebook channels, with the open-call announcement and exhibition launch tagged @gulfphotoplus.
Programmed alongside Alserkal Lates 2022, embedding the show in the wider Dubai cultural calendar.
Public programme: photo walk through old Dubai, food-photography workshop with Andrea Salerno Jacome, and a critique night judged by Mohamed Somji, Hussain AlMoosawi and Andrea Salerno Jacome.
Microsite and virtual tour shipped for remote audiences, in line with the proposal's brief.

Press

In the media.

Arab News

Al Ittihad

National Geographic Al Arabiya

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