The Role of Cultural Diplomacy in Hybridizing Emirati Plastic Art between Identity and Globalization

Abstract

Abstract

Arab and Islamic countries treat the issue of culture with great caution and sensitivity because of its direct relationship with identity and authenticity. However, in the light of globalization and the convergence of peoples, the policies of these countries must harmonize between heritage and modernity, and between tradition and modernity, wherefore each country has its own cultural diplomacy.

What this research raises is the question of the impact of cultural diplomacy on the evolution of materials and techniques in the Emirati plastic arts. In its quest for openness to peoples' cultures, the UAE has founded several institutions, museums and theaters which have influenced, in one way or another, the link of the Emirati visual artist with the modernity of art and heritage. The attention being paid to visual artists who were sent on scholarships in the early 1970s to train in various international art schools, which produced a hybrid between identity and globalization in the artist's thought and techniques.

By studying three different experiences of Emirati visual artists, the researcher came to the fact that globalization has produced the inevitability of modernism and the contemporary in visual art, and that contemporary art is the search for a new artistic thought and an up-to-date form of art related to the modernism in the arts on the one hand, and identity and heritage on the other hand, without being weighed down by intellectual and artistic heritage.

The politics pursued by countries within the framework of cultural diplomacy for openness and modernity does not affect the protection of the privacy of heritage and identity, and clinging to identity does not affect the protection of the privacy of heritage and identity and does not mean rejection or isolation or extinction, and the fact of adapting to one's time and seeking modernity does not mean uprooting.