Cultural Night Market: A DSF event that features local talent

Dubai: When one thinks of a Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) event, the first thing that comes to mind is a huge air-conditioned mall that features brands from all over the world.

The Cultural Night Market (CNM), a DSF event that took place at Safa Park at the weekend, however, was very different from the typical indoor shopping experience. CNM visitors got the opportunity to meet and buy from local artists and collectors, participate in free outdoor fitness classes and enjoy local musical entertainment while enjoying Dubai’s pleasant seasonal weather.

One of the main aims of the market is to support local artists, event organiser Lorena Serrano said. “We in the Cultural Night Market, have put all our effort to bring something different into the city as our aim is to support local talent. It is an event on behalf of the community,” Serrano said.

Collectors Greek Anthony Papalas and Serbian Jelena Dancetovic, exhibited their vintage collections. Papalas’ camera collection dates back to the 19th century and Dancetovic’s clothes collection dates back to the 1950s. Papalas started collecting cameras to follow in his father’s footsteps, also a camera collector, while Dancetovic started collecting clothes ten years ago because she simply did not like the fit of commercial clothes.

“We participated in CNM because we wanted to promote our local brand Vintagesouq.com and to exhibit and share our love for vintage. Most people are not aware of what vintage really is, so having a stall at CNM can help in interacting with people and hopefully raise some awareness,” said the collectors.

Indian Prema A.V. of Butik Nachiketa participated in CNM in order to show her collection that consists of handcrafts made by designers from India in the hopes of exposing their work and helping them make ends meet. “It has become a passion of mine to buy pieces from the original designers because I am not only sharing art from my homeland but I am also doing good by helping them promote their work.”

As for the visitors Wesam Mousa, an Egyptian who works for a pharmaceutical company, came to CNM to experience something new. “We do not have a lot of events like CNM in Dubai so I thought I’ll come and check it out. I think we should have more such events when the weather is good because it is a nice change.”

— Noor Nazzal is a trainee at Gulf News