What the UAE means to a long-time British expat

Gulf News

Ahead of the UAE’s 48th National Day celebration, art house founder Alison Collins reflects on her journey in the country  Read the full article here: https://bit.ly/2seSbhO  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos  Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  #Dubai #UAE #art

Transcript

00:00In those days, people used to make paper aeroplanes out of your visa,

00:05and literally, whoever was sponsoring you,

00:08they would make a paper aeroplane and fly it from the balcony.

00:12I arrived in March of 1976.

00:17In those days, people used to make paper aeroplanes out of your visa,

00:22and literally, whoever was sponsoring you,

00:25they would make a paper aeroplane and fly it from the balcony.

00:29And you had to catch it downstairs because you had to come in with it,

00:33but it had to be... Can you imagine that?

00:35I mean, it was just an amazing thing.

00:37I arrived here and there was sunshine and smiles,

00:40people with, I don't know, just a spirit.

00:45There was this wonderful feeling of something happening.

00:48Everybody who arrived here in those days became part of it.

00:52You were part of this incredibly exciting, evolving story.

00:58And you really did feel as though, you know, you had a part to play.

01:03It was incredibly good fun.

01:05I just was captivated by these buildings.

01:08There was just something so right about them.

01:13They really grew out of the sand.

01:16There was a couple of absolutely delightful gentlemen,

01:20the Fallichnaus brothers, and they were tea importers.

01:23I used to sit with them and chat and talk about things,

01:26and people had time for each other in those days.

01:28You know, there was an awful lot more interaction

01:31between the various kind of communities and the jobs

01:34and the things that people were doing.

01:36So I said to them, you know, I've fallen in love with these buildings.

01:39One day when I went past, they said, we found you a house.

01:43And I said, well, that's just wonderful.

01:46But I said, I know the kind of rents that houses are, you know,

01:52and it was way beyond...

01:53At this stage, my husband hadn't joined me, and I said,

01:57but they said, no, no, for you the rent is different.

02:00You're having a local rent.

02:03So they negotiated for me to have this house.

02:08We moved in here in 1978 with a six-month-old baby,

02:17and it became home.

02:19In 1979, there was a knock on the door,

02:23and this big, this lovely guy said,

02:26you don't know me, but I've been told that you're a lady who likes art.

02:31And I said, well, I do. I love art.

02:33And he said, well, I'm a painter.

02:35And his name was Julian Barrow.

02:36I was lazy to find out that he was actually a very famous British painter.

02:40But he said he would love to show these paintings.

02:43And, you know, did I think that we could do it together?

02:46And I said, well, why not?

02:48The big room where the wind tower is was Armadulis.

02:52I said, I'll tell you what, we'll put them up in Armadulis.

02:55So we put all of it.

02:56It was about a month later he came back in November of 1979.

03:02And he put all of the, we put the furniture in the garden.

03:05We put the paintings on the wall.

03:07And I just sat in the garden and hand-writ

03:10invitations that I'd made with a little printer down the road.

03:13And I passed them out to friends and said,

03:15pass these on to your friends.

03:16And everybody turned up for a party, basically,

03:20to have a look at some really lovely paintings of Dubai.

03:23And I sold the lot.

03:25So that was the beginning of the Armadulis Gallery.

03:28And it was called the Armadulis Gallery

03:30because the first exhibition I ever did was in my Armadulis.

03:33And it just all evolved from there.

03:36It was a great, but as the city evolved, you know,

03:40it was a very, very close knit community in those days.

03:44Then we were aware one day of a big kind of rumble in the area.

03:51And there was dust everywhere.

03:54We went up on the roof and all we could see over towards the mosque

03:59where all of the big, big buildings were, were bulldozers.

04:04And they were demolishing a great sector of the old quarter.

04:11And we found out to make way for the new ruler's office,

04:15which was much needed.

04:17We sort of thought, well, you know, how long have we got here?

04:20And we only had another 18 months.

04:22And then we had an eviction order as well.

04:25And left here with, I mean, the children wept.

04:27I wept. Everybody was kind of...

04:30And then about four months later,

04:32I had a phone call from my then landlord,

04:36who said, Alison, I've got great news. You can move back.

04:39I just said to my husband, look, I'm sorry, I've got to try and do this.

04:44I want to make that house into a permanent gallery.

04:48On November the 2nd, 1989,

04:50we opened as the Imaginers Gallery Limited Liability Company.

04:54And that was the beginning of a new, another new era.

04:57People say to me, gosh, you've seen some changes.

05:00And I say, well, yeah, but I, you know, and I was part of the changes,

05:03but they didn't happen overnight.

05:05And that spirit is still there.

05:09And that is what I hope Dubai hangs on to,

05:12is this wonderful open-mindedness

05:16to the possibilities that can make life better.

05:21At the same time, keeping, you know, their feet on the ground

05:24as to where they came from, because those old values,

05:27you know, those Bedouin values

05:31of caring for your neighbour and being open-hearted,

05:36that is, I think, so important to the core of Dubai as it goes forward.

05:43Yes, it's the most incredibly contemporary city now,

05:47but the underlying foundation of it

05:54was born from things that had got a lot of integrity.

06:05For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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