Dr. Al-Gharbi Stresses the Importance of Linking the Outputs to the Pioneering Projects in the Region 

Rabaté: The Museum Looks Forward to the Partnership with Bahrain, the Cradle of the Dilmun Civilization 

UoB Arts Students Roam the Louvre Abu Dhabi Virtually 

Dr. Al-Gharbi Stresses the Importance of Linking the Outputs to the Pioneering Projects in the Region 

Head of the Department of Media, Tourism and Arts at the College of Arts at the University of Bahrain (UoB), Dr. Kamal Mahmood Al-Gharbi, stressed the importance of linking learning outputs with pioneering projects in the region and the world to benefit from them, praising the experience of the virtual tour of the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum organized by the UAE Embassy for the students of the Department. 

As 120 art and design students and a group of art and design professors from the Department participated in the virtual tour on the MS Teams platform. 

Dr. Al-Gharbi praised how the museum narratively displayed art holdings, and how it showed them from several historical, root-related and critical aspects, which shall benefit the students in this distinctive experience. 

Also, the director of the museum, Manuel Rabaté, gave a presentation on the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which attracted in its first year a million visitors and quickly turned into one of the most important tourists and cultural attractions in the UAE, noting the close partnership between the Louvre Abu Dhabi and a large group of French museums, the most important of which is the Louvre Museum.  

Rabate pointed out that this partnership extends to include other museums in the Arab region, including those established with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman, expressing his aspiration for a soon-to-be partnership with the Kingdom of Bahrain, especially since the Dilmun civilization is one of the main civilizations that have the museum’s interest, and it is included on the World Heritage List.  

The virtual tour was presented by the Museum’s chief guide, Mohammed Hassan Al-Madhani, and the Museum’s tour supervisor, Dina Mohammed Turkiya, and it relied on 3D images and videos. 

The two guides interactively presented their presentation based on ​​displaying the collectibles and exhibits and narrating the related stories according to chronological order, as they showed the most important holdings currently on display, covering the main halls in the Museum. Also, during the various narrations, they emphasized the importance of cultural presentation in the Museum’s work technique and the foundations of cultural exchange and dialogue between civilizations and cultures. 

It’s worth noting that the guides began the visit from the Great Hall, which was intended to show the similarities between ancient civilizations concerning the daily lifestyle and presented the example of the golden death masks that are similar despite the geographical and temporal distances, from northern China, Lebanon, Syria and Peru. 

Lastly, they concluded the tour by talking about the Museum’s design philosophy, which was inspired by the French architect Jean Nouvel from the Arab-Islamic architecture, as he gave it the shape of the museum-city to let visitors walk through the white corridors overlooking the sea. Also, he added a dome, which stands above four columns and consists of 7850 metal pieces that intersect at eight levels, allowing the light to infiltrate, as do palm trees when their trunks and fronds huddle in the oases of the Emirates. 

The Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum is a pioneering cultural achievement and a unique experience in the Arab region. It is the fruit of close cooperation between the United Arab Emirates and the French Republic, under which the French government lent the Louvre name for thirty years.