All aboard the Safina boat for Biennale broadcasting—and cultural radio in Dubai afterwards

Today was the third and last day of a suitably Venetian Biennale project dreamt up by Alserkal Avenue, the arts zone created out of an un-glitzy industrial area of Dubai. They have hired a boat—safina in Arabic, alluding also to Noah’s Ark—and sailed it round Venice, transmitting artists’ interviews and performances, including one by Raqs Media Collective. The Ghanaian-born British artist John Akomfrah is interviewed about his activism and about how one person’s utopia is another’s dystopia, while Sadik Kwaish Alfraji, creator of the beautiful piece Driven by Storms (Ali’s boat), on show recently in Alserkal, is reading from his poetry. You can download all this and more in podcasts. Annabelle de Gersigny, the project’s curator, says that Safina Radio is not just for Venice, but will be a cultural radio station for Dubai: “I used to have to drive between Dubai and Abu Dhabi a lot when I was working for the Guggenheim and there was nothing worth listening to.” Thirty percent of the programmes will be about art. Go to www.safinaradioproject.org to hear the broadcasts.