Salma Serry: Library Circles

As part of the research commission, Serry investigates the menus of various food venues that cater to migrant communities in the UAE.

Serry’s ongoing research encompasses food lists that are recalled, extracted and collected from memory, community cookbooks, television, and the press, from the late 1960s to the end of the 1990s. She collects material that records parts of an unofficial heritage of various migrant communities – such as expatriates, foreigners, residents, non-citizens – who are in continuous movement in and out of this city.

In pursuit of informal and unconventional research material, Serry employs methodologies and supporting sources such as memory work and oral history interviews.

In addition to the opening, this iteration of Library Circles also includes a workshop led by Salma Serry and a talk with Salma Serry and Daniel L Newman, author of The Sultan’s Feast.

Salma’s research also links the Jameel Arts Centre’s programme with that of its new sister institution, Hayy Jameel in Jeddah. Hayy Arts’ opening exhibition, ‘Staple: What’s on your plate?’.

Library Circles feature research, talks and experimental interventions by UAE practitioners in the Jameel Library and Jameel Arts Centre. The programme explores alternative research methodologies and representations with a focus on ‘thinking in public’.