GeekFest Sharjah

Just in case you have been travelling to remotest Baltistan over the past week and didn't hear about it already, GeekFest is taking place over at the Al Maraya Art Centre, which is at Al Qasba, the funky canal-side recreation area down by Al Tawun.

It's a big space and there's loads of room, but there's also plenty going on, too.

The event will 'start' at 7.30pm and the talks start at 8pm, each lasting for 15 minutes - there's a talk from creative community website TripleW, from manga Geek Qais Sedki, art collaborator Alex Tohme and amateur historian me. There are workshops, too - on photography for post-processing by ace lensman and digital tinkerer Catalin Marin and one on origami from JUKI, the Emirati/Japanese collective. We'll also have a team from Sharjah Museums on hand displaying images and chatting about two important new exhibitions that have opened in Sharjah this week, British Orientalist Owen Jones and Sudanese artist Ibrahim El Salahi, the painter of 'Africa's Guernica'. There'll also be an exhibition of photography from Mohammed Azimuddin and if that's all not enough, there's GameFest, powered by tbreak and megamers and a technology showcase from Nokia.

GeekFest Sharjah takes place at the same time as the Al Qasba Food Festival, so there's an unusually wide selection food and drink and there are a couple of surprises as well.

What's not to love? And please, Dubai types, spare us the moaning about traffic. We do it every day. It's time you lot came up north and explored the boonies!

BTW, Al Qasba's easily reached by turning off the Dubai-Sharjah highway towards Al Taawun and it's really not that congested. Honestly!

More details over on the blog if you fancy more info. No registration, no limitations, no rules - just pitch up when you like and enjoy yourself! Oh, and I've promised not to do any readings from or talking about Olives!:)

Cheers!