‘We’re looking at the climate crisis because it’s here and now and affecting us daily,’: Inside Art Jameel’s push for sustainability and industry-wide change – The Art Newspaper

Art Jameel, the independent art organisation in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, is centring sustainability in its operations and programming and leading a push for less stringent conservation standards in the cultural sector. Historically set by institutions in North America and Northern Europe, these standards can require significant energy consumption to maintain and are exacerbating inequity among institutions that cannot comply, primarily those in the Global South.

Largely funded by the Jameel family, owners of the international conglomerate Abdul Latif Jameel, Art Jameel was founded in 2003 as a grant-giving agency. In 2017, it expanded to include exhibitions and programming, opening Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai in 2018 and Hayy Jameel in Jeddah in 2021. With this shift and the construction of new buildings, Art Jameel began to apply sustainable practices across its operations. “We’re looking at the climate crisis because it’s here and now and affecting us daily,” Antonia Carver, the director of Art Jameel, tells The Art Newspaper.

Included in its initiatives are exhibitions and programming centred on environmental themes such as water scarcity, green practices in architecture, and the history of oil extraction, a relevant topic in the oil-rich Arab Gulf. Art Jameel also supports climate initiatives through its Research and Practice Platform grants and the Anhar: Culture and Climate Platform in collaboration with the British Council, which funds projects in the Southwest Asian and North African (Swana) region that respond to the climate emergency, including organisations seeking to reduce their carbon emissions.

To address its operational sustainability, Art Jameel conducts carbon audits with an outside consultant roughly annually, which determined that the largest elements of its emissions are energy and water. Using these audits, the institution has reduced its carbon footprint by 27.75% since 2021, including by improving water systems to reduce consumption in its sculpture park and eight gardens. Art Jameel also installed drinking fountains that harvest humidity from the air, which additionally reduce humidity in the galleries.

Among steps to use less energy, Art Jameel’s buildings have sensors that turn off lights when areas are not in use, as well as UV filters on some windows that reduce heat. “We have a lot more to do, but changes take time and additional audits to understand whether our actions make a difference,” Carver says. “Right now, we are focusing on reduction and the next step will be to shift to renewable energy, including through solar panels, but we’ve been advised to wait a year or two because this technology is changing and becoming more efficient.”

Though the Arab Gulf region profits immensely from the fossil fuel industry, Carver notes that in the UAE in particular there is increased support for renewable energy, evidenced by the recent announcement that Masdar, the state-owned renewable energy firm, will create a $6bn facility for clean solar and battery energy. This, she explains, is part of a greater governmental prioritisation of sustainability that increased in the lead up to COP28 in 2023 and has since continued.

Beyond its own practices, Art Jameel is taking aim at industry-wide standards through its Collection Care Fellowship, a biannual programme to evaluate conservation standards in the industry and address how these impact institutions in the Swana region.

“Conservation practices have historically been shaped by institutions in the Global North with standards that assume access to specialised materials, stable environmental conditions and well-equipped laboratories,” fellow ​​Rachel Tabet says. “While valuable guidelines, they do not always translate to the realities of institutions in the Swana region, where political, economic, and environmental constraints make access to these resources challenging.” Tabet adds that institutions across the region rely on importing conservation-quality materials, “which is costly, time-consuming, and often impractical,” she says. Through the fellowship, Tabet aims to identify low-cost, accessible methods to test material stability that can be used to evaluate locally sourced materials.

Additionally, Art Jameel is addressing the standards of temperature and relative humidity ranges in which artwork should be preserved, which are also historically dictated by museums in North America and Northern Europe in temperate climates. “Not all museum practices that were developed for institutions in temperate climates are equally suited to institutions in non-temperate climates,” says the fellow Amanda Pagliarino. “The sector must reconsider practices to ensure climate responsible and sustainable collection care. This should start by acknowledging what has been absent, which is the experience of museums in arid, tropical, and sub-tropical climates.”

Climate control requirements also apply to loans. “If we achieve these loan standards, we would send our carbon footprint through the roof,” Carver says. “We are fairly well-resourced, so we’re able to comply, but what about the institutions that can’t afford a higher energy bill or whose infrastructures simply cannot achieve the standards? And why should we increase our energy consumption? It’s not just a financial cost.”

Art Jameel hopes the information gathered through the fellowship and its other research initiatives will present a case for broader perspectives on collection care. On an existential level, Carver adds, “we are asking whether as an institution we are prepared to rethink the shelf-life of objects and rethink our responsibility to preserving things ad infinitum. In the long run, doing so will allow more institutions across the world to borrow artworks and give new audiences access to culture. It’s almost unfathomable, but we’re committed to asking our colleagues to rethink our responsibilities.”