Canned Pearl
26.09.2025
Social impact, Ideas
In late 2016, the BL team were in Abu Dhabi working on the curation of the hugely successful Qasr Al Hosn Festival. One of the major draws of the festival that year was the temporary exhibition ‘The Story of Abu Dhabi & Its People’, which told the story of a city and the people who have made it their home.
A key turning point in this story occurs during the early 20th century, when a perfect storm of global events dealt a heavy blow to the region’s economy: the World Wars, the stock market crash of 1929, worldwide economic depression and the invention of cultured pearls in Japan. Our curatorial team faced a challenge: how to powerfully yet succinctly interpret this moment within the exhibition without turning to the typical newspaper front pages or archival images? Playing with scale and juxtaposition, we sourced a ‘canned pearl’—a small, modern and mass-produced consumer product—which we displayed at the close of a gallery celebrating traditional pearling heritage. Lit beautifully like a precious jewel, the impact was intentionally jarring—highlighting just how profound this shift was to be for Abu Dhabi and the region.