Screenshot via FIND

Forming Intersections and Dialogue, or FIND, is a new cultural and artistic laboratory run by NYU Abu Dhabi associate professor of Film and New Media Mo Ogrondik. The project seeks to bring together individuals from multiple disciplines to create non-traditional art focused on Abu Dhabi and the UAE. In an attempt to attract a broader art audience and create deeper community connections in the UAE, FIND conducts its events and online presence in both English and Arabic.

FIND began as a project as a way for Ogrondik to connect more deeply with the UAE because she often felt alienated in her constant travel between New York and Abu Dhabi.

“I really wanted to have a sense of the UAE landscape and try and find a meaningful way to actually get out into the UAE and find out more about it,” Ogrondik said.

Using Ogrondik's own background in filmmaking and screenwriting and her interest in visual storytelling, the project began as a series of multimedia workshops with local Emirati storytellers. FIND has since expanded to include NYUAD Institute talks and a website filled with stories and photography of the UAE and the Gulf. FIND's work includes projects such as a time-lapse video of a square in Abu Dhabi where a Bangladeshi community congregates and personal reflections on the Abu Dhabi bus station. Past events included workshops on mapping Abu Dhabi and interdisciplinary panel discussions.

The guiding philosophy behind FIND’s projects is that of an artistic laboratory in which researchers and artists come together to create work that showcases a different side of the UAE, one far removed from the lush P.R. images one might find in an Etihad in-flight magazine.

According to Ogrondik, FIND attempts to answer, “what does it look like for an artistic project to live within the model of a scientific laboratory?”

NYUAD FIND intern, Diana Gluck, expressed her opinion on the project's website.

“[The website was] more of an immersive experience,” said Gluck.

This was due to the variety of media.

Sophomore Megan Eloise attended an institute event on FIND and likened the project to visual field notes, calling it a digital ethnography.

FIND's wide variety of contributors furthers its cross-disciplinary approach. They range from social scientists to those with a design background, both Emirati nationals and expatriates. FIND also collaborates with academics from UAE University.

FIND has received mixed responses. Eloise noted that FIND is yet to establish itself and that it will be a while before it has come into its identity.

Further projects include reaching out to NYUAD photography students and asking them to capture images that remind students of danger. This might become part of a wider workshop designed to involve NYUAD students with FIND.

For Ogrondik, this is just the beginning of FIND; the group aims to connect with underrepresented demographics in the UAE’s artistic community. In order to do so, Ogrondik is travelling to Pakistan and Kerala, India in an attempt to forge connections between artists in South Asia and the UAE because a large proportion of the population hails from the Asian subcontinent. Ogrondik noted that this was part of the organization’s aim of creating a portrait of the UAE and its connection to the larger world.

FIND explicitly attempts to unearth a side of the UAE not normally emphasized or depicted by creating art that is both inclusive and universal, not simply directed toward professionals from the West. While Ogrondik pointed to cultural organizations, artists and scholars in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia as its main audience, FIND has developed initiatives to connect with the South Asian population in the UAE.

"[We] want to open up to the public," said Gluck.