Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 24 January 2019: Art Dubai and The Cultural Office of Her Highness Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced today the artist and theme for the seventh edition of the Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program. American artist Sally Curcio has been chosen the lead artist for the upcoming iteration, themed Creating New Worlds. The program will take place at Art Dubai from March 20-23, 2019.

Held under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of UAE Gender Balance Council, President of Dubai Women Establishment, and wife of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs UAE, the program is a partnership between The Cultural Office and Art Dubai, offering a unique educational opportunity for UAE-based children and teenagers, and encouraging them to excel in the arts. The program is part of Art Dubais longstanding commitment to education and the development of the UAEs cultural landscape.

With Creating New Worlds, lead artist Sally Curcio will invite children and teenagers to explore and create cityscapes and urban landscapes through the use of miniatures and prototypes, allowing them to create their own imaginative utopia. Curcios goal with this project is to motivate an inventive spirit, cooperation as well as to encourage participants to explore how different materials can be composed to create new imagined environments. Materials such as colored beads, balls, pipe cleaners, blocks, bottle caps, and other found and recycled material will be used to create the new worlds, and their use for representing cityscapes of varying scale and perspective enriches idea development and creative processes that are of value in a range of artistic and work endeavors.

Al Maha Al Bastaki, Director of The Cultural Office, commented: Her Highness Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoums unwavering commitment to building and developing art education for children and the youth in the UAE manifests itself in a variety of projects throughout the year, with the Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program, going into its seventh edition this year, being one of the key initiatives in the ecosystem of art education in the UAE.

We are delighted to announce Sally Curcio as the lead artist for the programs 2019 edition and look forward to seeing her ignite imagination and an inventive spirit in all participating children and youth taking part, Al Bastaki added.

Newly appointed lead artist Sally Curcio said: Im delighted to have been chosen as the lead artist for the seventh edition of this prestigious program. One of the key areas of focus in my work is engaging with children and teenagers, and I look forward to working with them on creating their own little utopias, while learning how to use their imagination, cooperate with each other and employ an inventive spirit.

The full program for the 7th edition of the Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program will include on-site workshops at Art Dubai, the popular Discovery Tours for children and teenagers at the fair, as well as the Artists-in-Schools Initiative. Due to the growing popularity of the program, the number of public workshops will increase by 25% for the upcoming edition and feature daily Discovery Tours.

Further details of the program will be announced in the coming weeks.