A private museum,
kept for a public reason
More than 200,000 photographs and the paper record of a country's first six decades.
The museum is held in a private residence in Dubai. It was not assembled as a collection — it accumulated, frame by frame and paper by paper, because one person kept photographing and never threw anything away.
What survives is a continuous visual record of the United Arab Emirates from 1968: Port Rashid under construction, the first Dubai International Airport, the Union celebrations, the tunnels and air shows, and the ordinary streets that have since been replaced. Alongside the photographs sit the permits, passports, currency, telegrams and cameras of the same years.
Ten books have been published from the collection. Material is lent, reproduced and digitised under agreement; nothing leaves permanently.
Mission
To preserve the photographic and documentary record of the United Arab Emirates and keep it accessible to the people whose history it holds.
Vision
A permanent public home for the collection in Dubai — a place where the country's first six decades can be studied, not only remembered.
Objectives
To catalogue and conserve every frame, to share it through books, loans and exhibitions, and to digitise it so researchers anywhere can work from it.
Awards & recognition
Two received · one to come
Erth Dubai Award
Best Dubai Resident Story. Honoured by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum at the Museum of the Future, among the winners of the Erth Dubai Awards.
Certificate of Appreciation
From the Hamdan bin Mohammed Heritage Centre, Government of Dubai — for active participation in preserving and documenting the national heritage.
Third recognition
Open slot — send the name, the awarding body and the year.Memberships
The collection is held to professional archival standards and its work is carried out within the international archives community.
ICA
International Council on Archives
Individual Member
ARA UK & Ireland
Archives & Records Association
International Member