This project explored ways of cultivating reciprocity in digital spaces by setting up a space of abundance and openness. Bhoomika Ghaghada and the Gulf Creative Collective were interested in answering the question: Can templates of knowledge-sharing, empathetic community members, a deliberate sense of openness, and a focus on shared lived local experiences shift the rules of engagement in a digital space?

 

Since 2017, the team at the Gulf Creative Collective have worked on several community projects — virtual and on-ground — in New York City. The aim of these projects was learning technologies of transparency in multiplying creative production, outreach tools and strategies designed to amplify marginalized voices, and enabling commitment to a collective by converging around shared values and experiences.

 

During the Warehouse421 Homebound Residency program, the group extended, bent and applied these lessons appropriately to the UAE’s context, testing and learning for its specific political space, social hierarchy, cultural norms and economy. The team conducted extensive outreach, focusing on underrepresented creatives through call-outs and research on digital networks such as Instagram as well as in-person communication. Their target group included artists, media professionals, researchers, filmmakers, animators, designers, and photographers in the UAE. The Collective then coalesced to brainstorm and build evolving infrastructure to address these needs.

 

During the making of the project, the team faced some unexpected opportunities and challenges. The pace of organic community building had to be respected, yet the longer process resulted in deeper, more reciprocal relationships, instead of a transactional exchange of ideas over a single conversation. Two members who were reached out to are now part of the core team at Gulf Creative Collective, and despite the situational limitations caused by the pandemic, the group evolved to a strong team with each member attracted to our core values.

 

 

 

Working Process: Care, Knowledge, Language

 

 

 

Working Process: Online Community Building

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout the months of the Homebound Residency, the team has learned and documented ongoing conversations and concerns in different creative fields in the UAE, which will feed the work Gulf Creative Collective will do in 2021-2022.

 

Conversations with each potential member began with meaningful peer-to-peer needs assessment: What is this Creative looking for and how can we assist them to reach their goals? The Collective’s outreach team then conducted in-depth conversations and interviews with Creatives from a range of fields in the UAE. Functioning as an archive for these conversations, the Collective’s Instagram page presents these Creatives’ work, processes, and tools. Behind the scenes, these conversations resulted in the making of the Reciprocity Toolkit, which is both a toolkit and a tool for community building.

 

 

 

Snapshot of the Gulf Creative Collective's Instagram Page

 

 

Staying true to their founding insight of beginning relationships with generosity to cultivate reciprocity, the Collective’s Outreach and Strategy team worked to coordinate viable solutions for the Creative’s current personal challenges. Conversations with several artists pointed to a need for more rigorous peer mentorship in the UAE. Public-facing, this insight resulted in a public Google Sheet called the Peer Mentorship Sign-Up Sheet. Other outcomes of the needs-assessments were two more public Google Sheets, the Real UAE Creative Salaries and Open Calls in the Gulf, both beneficial tools for creatives to navigate challenges during their careers. All public Google Sheets, as well as the Reciprocity Toolkit can be found here. This project is an ongoing work, enriched by each new connection between creatives, the Collective, and their goals.

 

 

 

 

Let's Find Each Other: A Gulf Creative Collective Networking Workshop

Led by Bhoomika Ghaghada on July 6,2021