INTRODUCTION

Exhibition, lectures and workshops

Sharjah's Department of Culture and Information served as the promoter and the host of Overlaps. Working closely with this administrative organ and with Else Marie Bukdahl, the artist Dorte Dahlin organised this exhibition, which constituted the first presentation of Danish art in the United Arab Emirates. Twenty-one Danish artists, architects, poets and scholars took part. Among them were three people with an Arab background, who contributed with lectures and simultaneous translations of speeches, broadcasts and in-terviews on television and in the newspapers.In connection with the exhibi-tion, a catalogue in English and Arabic was published, which presented the materials of the exhibition, a text about Søren Kierkegaard written by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn and translations of Danish poetry.

Lectures were held at both The American University and Sharjah University. A workshop that was held out in the desert was also arranged.

As a result of the cultural event a number of artworks, presented at OVERLAPS. NORTH-SOUTHEAST, are now part of the collection at Sharjah Art Museum.

Furthermore Else Marie Bukdahl and Dorte Dahlin were asked to work out a proposal for an Academy of Fine Arts in Sharjah.