SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
Want to make sure you know about the next private sale? The latest new hot spots and places to hang out in Abu Dhabi? Join our community to be the first to know. Register to our newsletter, thousands of readers have signed up already!
MICRO-FOLIE is quite unique and definitely worth visiting in Abu Dhabi
As part of the Emirati French Cultural Dialogue and in tune with the Year of Tolerance in the United Arab Emirates, the French Alliance Abu Dhabi (Alliance Française of Abu Dhabi) inaugurated the «Micro-Folie» in Abu Dhabi on the 25th of April 2019, the very first in the Gulf Region actually.
If you haven’t yet heard about Micro-Folie Abu Dhabi, it is a friendly and free of charge permanent cultural space inside Alliance Française that allows visitors to discover the masterpieces from France’s greatest cultural institutions thanks to this Digital Museum.
Since its initial launch in 2017, Micro-Folies expanded with various locations in France and abroad including Rangoon (Myanmar), Izmir (Turkey), Sibiu (Romania) and Lima (Peru).
Aiming to promote universal masterpieces, the Micro-Folie project takes the form of a digital museum – with a large screen, tablets, virtual reality space exploring artistic and natural universes in 360 – that highlights a selection of more than 500 artworks from twelve prestigious French cultural institutions such as the Pompidou Center, the Palace of Versailles, the Cité de la Musique – Philharmonie de Paris, the Avignon Festival , the Institute of the Arab World, the Louvre Museum, the Picasso National Museum, the Orsay Museum, the Quai Branly Museum – Jacques Chirac, the Opéra National de Paris, the Rmn-Grand Palais, Universcience and other national operators.
What is this Digital Museum concept all about?
The Digital Museum is an innovative device made of a big screen, on which a movie is playing, presenting the artworks of the partner institutions, and tablets that offer additional contents, explanations and games about the artworks on the screen.
The didactic approach proposed by the «Micro-Folie» allows the public to discover treasures covering many parts of the history of art, ranging from Antiquity to the most contemporary expression of creation. This tool gives access to hundreds of artworks mixing painting, sculpture, design, architecture, scientific videos, concert, drama, dance, etc.
Currently available in French language, MICRO FOLIE will also be available in English and Arabic from June 2019 onwards and will be fully operational to visit after summer, in September 2019.
In the meantime, visitors are encouraged to go and have a first glance as the Digital Museum is open to visit anytime with the regular opening times of Alliance Française.
Micro-Folie Abu Dhabi currently offers four different collections:
Collections #1 and #2 with 500 masterpieces from 12 French Institutions named above.
Collection Japonism created from a collaboration between France and Japan in 2018
Collection Hauts-de-France which gathers 28 art institutions as a 20 minutes’ free access movie.
What makes it unique is also the different modes to visit the exhibition
The Free Visitor mode
The visitors have access to the screening on a big screen which displays the masterpieces of the cultural institutions, mixing arts, ages, techniques, civilizations, subjects, sciences and live shows.
Several movies are available inside the Digital Museum showcasing the four collections on board.
The Conference mode
This mode allows you to prepare your own playlist online (details here) ahead of your visit. This tool is actually ideal if you want to focus on a specific topic or period.
It also is a fantastic tool for teachers and guides and is suitable for school programs and pedagogical issues with a couple of playlists already available around different themes, historical periods or social issues.
Who is this tool for?
Children, students, adults of all ages should come and visit the Micro-Folie, an exceptional window on the history of artistic creation and a superb overview of the common heritage of humanity.
We also noticed there is an adult and kid mode available on tablets and the content and features about the masterpieces is adjusted upon the age of visitors. Kids will also enjoy their time there as the tool is really visual and allows the little ones to explore through digital games such as puzzles, memory cards and more…
In addition, the «Micro-Folie» will allow each student of the Alliance Française to learn French as a Foreign Language while immersing themselves in an exciting cultural context. The youth will be invited to open up to the world to better understand it.
As a cultural mediation tool par excellence, the «Micro-Folie» is also designed to accompany the process of teaching art history and give the opportunity to teachers of schools and universities of Abu Dhabi to organize courses at the Alliance Française with their students.
FRENCH ALLIANCE ABU DHABI | Villa # 75, Al Baten Street#32 ,Exit 19, Next to the Irish Embassy, Abu Dhabi
WEBSITE: https://afabudhabi.org
Opening Hours:
Sunday to Thursday: 9 am to 8 pm
Saturday: 9.30 am to 5.30 pm

Join our WhatsApp group and receive curated news and offers in your WhatsApp Feed