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Studio Seminars

Led by Maitha Bushelaibi, this studio seminar takes Mina Zayed as both subject and system. The fish market, warehouses, fruit stalls, and overlapping rhythms of the port become the conceptual and material framework for a day of making that mirrors the ecosystem it draws from.

The session opens with a collective encounter with Mina Zayed, not as a location but as a network of exchange. Participants will curate a collection of found objects, foraged flora, recycled papers, rope, netting, and materials sourced from and around the port. Making begins collectively, with participants working together on a single shared paper pulp surface, pressing found objects and materials into it to leave imprints and traces that overlap and accumulate, with no single participant controlling the outcome.

From there, each participant will create an individual piece, selecting a pre-cut base shaped after visual elements of Mina Zayed and building a layered collage assemblage using recycled papers, found materials, flora, and mark-making. A pulp drawing is made simultaneously and set outside to dry before being peeled and integrated into the assemblage, layering raised surfaces over and into the work already built. The focus throughout is on unexpected connections between materials and the layered, overlapping nature of the port itself.

Participants leave with an individual assemblage shaped by paper pulp, collage, and found materials that bears the traces of Mina Zayed and the marks of everyone and everything that inhabits it. The piece is theirs, yet not entirely theirs, shaped by the same logic of exchange and interdependence that defines the port it draws from.

Accessibility & Participation

Open to ages 18+ 

Capacity: 12

60 AED

About the Instructor

Maitha Bushelaibi is an emerging Emirati multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores everyday life and the shifting boundaries between the private and public. Working through material-led processes including papermaking, printmaking, sculpture, and mixed media, she treats materials as collaborators that transform, resist, and carry traces of presence. Her work draws from sentiments, nostalgia, local culture, and quiet moments of observation, using making as a way to question how meaning is constructed and understood. Blending traditional approaches with contemporary experimentation, Maitha's practice becomes a process of reflection and exploration, collecting pieces of lived experience in an attempt to make sense of the world around her.