Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) announced that its ‘Photographs in Dialogue’ exhibition, organised at Etihad Museum, is now available on the ‘Dubai 360’ website, the largest interactive online tour to explore cities in the world. This comes as part of the Authority’s efforts to achieve one of the sectoral priorities of its strategic roadmap, which is to place culture everywhere and for everyone.

Via Dubai 360, Dubai Culture provides an interactive channel that allows visitors from all over the world to learn about and draw inspiration from the journey of the UAE’s union in 1971. This initiative comes within Dubai Culture’s keenness to provide multiple and innovative channels to celebrate the UAE’s history.

The ‘Photographs in Dialogue’ exhibition, which was launched on 9 September 2020 and is continuing until 25 March, highlights the importance of historical relations between the UAE and the United Kingdom and recounts the stories of prominent leaders in both countries, who worked together to develop plans to end the official presence of the UK in the region. The exhibition, which also sheds light on the beginning of a bright era for the UAE, was visited by a number of important figures in the country, including the UAE Ambassador to the UK, HE Mansoor Abulhoul, the UK Ambassador to the UAE, HE Patrick Moody, the Director of the British Council in the UAE, HE Aida Salamanca.

Photographs in Dialogue is organised by Dubai Culture in cooperation with the National Portrait Gallery in London, and with the support of the British Council, and presents its visitors with a collection of photographs presented by the National Portrait Gallery in London and others from the UAE’s rich archive, most prominently a picture of Queen Elizabeth II as well as a rare series of photos of the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, taken by Rex Coleman at Baron Studios in 1961. On display are also several photos that documented key moments in the period preceding the UAE’s union.

The organisation of the exhibition falls in line with the Authority’s vision to strengthen Dubai’s position as a global centre for culture, an incubator for creativity, and a thriving hub for talent by activating cooperation at the local and international levels to present rich cultural experiences that draw inspiration from the emirate’s cultural assets and contribute to placing it on the global cultural map. The exhibition also embodies the Authority’s firm belief in the importance of this type of exhibitions and its role in enriching the public’s thinking and culture, raising the awareness to generations of the UAE’s most important achievements in the union, deepening their sense of belonging to the homeland, and enhancing the value of drawing inspiration from history in the journey of development and the anticipation of the future.