JEDDAH — The British Council in cooperation with Saudi Art Council held a lecture on "curating and collecting contemporary art" recently. The lecture was presented by visiting expert Ann Ghallar, a former senior curator, visual arts department, the British Council, London. The event was held to help develop contemporary art curators in Saudi Arabia, with a Contemporary Collective program, launched by the British Council recently. The training program that extends from Riyadh to London, UAE and Jeddah saw six Saudi female participants represent the best of the young and creative art community of Saudi Arabia. They have been given private tutoring by top UK specialists during the last 5 months and got the chance to visit top art institutes in the region and in London. At the end of this training the participants will get the chance to curate an exhibition using British Council's art collection, presenting an international level exhibition using top art work in partnership with the Saudi Art Council. This week the group was hosted by Athr Gallery on their 6th module of the training program; which was followed by a public talk from the visiting expert, Ghallar. Speaking on the occasion Ghallar discussed aspects of her career in art to demonstrate her particular approach to curating. She displayed some of the pictures of famous art galleries and art collections and shared her journey of contemporary art with the audience. A question and answer session was also held. She said, "This is my first visit to Saudi Arabia and I am very pleased to be here. I have so enjoyed talking to the curators, learning a little bit about Saudi Arabia and I hope I come back to learn more." She added, "My experience as a curator is what I can pass on to these curators. For the upcoming curators this is incredibly important profession, in a way the artist needs curators to allow them more time to persent their work, and allow the curators to be the one who help explain and interpret and present their work to audiences." Artist and contemporary art lovers attended the lecture. They acquire knowledge on curatorial events and ideas on reaching diverse audiences. Solafa Rawas, a Saudi female participant of the program, said, "The lecture was very informative and the event was great one to be offered to Saudi artistic community through Saudi Art Council."
