The Smithsonian Folklife Festival

 2022 Smithsonian Folklife Festival  WashintonUSA

A photo of me at the National Mall where the Festival was held.

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival was established in 1967 this is one of the biggest cultural events in the world and is an annual event that had suspended its activities for the last 2 years due to the pandemic in 2019. The festival was annually held at the National Mall and was an outdoor event that took place from the 22^nd of June overlapping the 4th of July which is the USA independence day.

This 2022 event was hosted by the United Arab Emirates under the theme ‘UAE: Living Landscape | Living Memory,’ which highlights the UAE's history, heritage, culture, and traditions this program was sponsored by many government organizations mainly the UAE Ministry of Culture and Youth and supported by the UAE Embassy to the USA. The institution is managing many Heritage and Museums across America so this event was very special to me. 

I am so grateful to be part of this important cultural event representing the heritage artifacts of the country in which I have lived for many years.  People might be wondering why I was chosen to represent heritage artifacts, well, it is because I am working in this field for almost eight years now.

In addition to familiarizing the heritage artifacts we have, I am part of doing research on the heritage artifacts that my employer collected. We wrote books about history, heritage, culture, and tradition in the UAE including the artifacts as part of it.

We arrived on 19^th June, after two days of preparation and orientation. The program started on 23^rd June and each participant team was assigned to their area where they displayed a variety of activities that showcase the country which is the UAE.    

Everyone worked hard to present UAE's history, culture, and heritage. Some of the activities included coffee making, baskets, mat weaving (using palm fronds and derivatives), and henna for women. Other participants demonstrated how to mix Arabic perfume and showed the source of ingredients to make perfume.

There was a demonstration of falconry, an Arabic calligraphy workshop, traditional dance and music, pearling, honey tasting and demoed, Poetry, fish nets and trap making, and many more. There was also a small area that showed Al Falaj, the oldest traditional water irrigation system used in the UAE. There were also cooking demonstrations.

We arrange our space into a small museum, and called it “Emirati Home”, our presentation and demonstration showed belongings that are heritage artifacts that could be seen in an Emirati house during the late 17^th to late 20^th centuries including; old sitting room doors, window shutters, UAE coffee pots, rosewater sprinklers, incense burners, and coffee cups which are the symbol of their hospitality and generosity in addition to various types of coffee and coffee spices. We also displayed Bedouin female jewelry, women's beautification, and also men's accessories. We explained how Emiratis used these objects and what their purposes were until today. 

Everyone who visited our “Emirati Home” was very curious and asked many questions. They asked about the country’s history, culture, and traditions. They were amazed by beautiful handmade crafts. Some of them wanted to acquire a miniature or replicate of our items but unfortunately, they were not available in the institution market.

We were also surprised about the reaction of some of the visitors, even though we are in the modern era (in which some information about a country can be discovered by social media and other search engines on the internet), there were still people who were not aware of UAE, however, there were many people who don’t know Dubai and Abu Dhabi is part of UAE some used to say Qatar, Oman, and Yemen as part of it.

    

A front side photo of our area while I was talking and explaining in front of many people. 

These are some of the reasons why we are here to promote and narrate to people about the UAE through exhibitions and participating in cultural activities such as the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. 

Other activities performed were discussions on the stage; I was selected to join many talks with other participants to discuss the Living landscape; Living memory in the UAE prior to the oil boom and discussion of our memory from the oil exploration, the establishment of UAE until today. The last talk was about the Majlis' role, past, present, and future.

Below are some screenshots of selected websites featuring our activity.