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ArtDubaiAbu DhabiEvents

by Dara Morgan

UAE Cultural Digest: May 2025

29 Apr 2025

Temperatures are rising, sandals are melting, and the sun is personally offended if you leave the house without SPF 50 — yet the UAE’s cultural scene simply refuses to take a nap. May is bustling, with new exhibitions, film festivals, site-specific installations in the wilderness, and performance art that involves crystals and multiple dimensions (naturally). Whether your idea of cultural enlightenment involves meditative digital masterpieces or high-concept horror at Cinema Akil, this month has something for everyone — including the heatstroke-prone and the hyper-scheduled.

Shaikha Al Mazrou’s Deliberate Pauses in the Hatta Mountains

An artwork that complements landscape.
Leave it to Shaikha Al Mazrou to take on the Hatta mountains — not with a bulldozer or a neon light installation shouting into the void, but with five enormous metal circles that somehow blend in and stand out all at once. Deliberate Pauses is described as Dubai’s largest site-specific art intervention. Which sounds rather dramatic until you realise that the sculptures, each five metres across, are also incredibly well-behaved. They sit along the trail around Leem Lake with a meditative stillness, as if politely declining to interrupt your hike — despite their size and shine.
Shaikha Al Mazrou, known for teasing unlikely tensions from metal and space, channels her signature style here again. The circles are red — the same fiery hue as her Red Stack from Frieze London — and smooth as if buffed by mountain whispers. That is not to say they are delicate. They are steel. They are five metres wide. They have presence. But somehow they also disappear into the rust-toned rocks, their silence louder than any signage could be.
If you feel like contemplating existence and/or burning calories, a hike around the lake will provide both.
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Arab Cinema Week Volume 4 at Cinema Akil

Ten days of Arab film, feelings, and probably a few quiet sobs in the dark.
When? May 2–11
Where? Cinema Akil
Cinema Akil is back at it — gathering filmmakers, dreamers, existential crises, and excellent popcorn under one independent arthouse roof. Volume 4 of Arab Cinema Week is diving straight into the soul of the region, unearthing stories of resistance, nostalgia, and the occasional supernatural encounter. With premieres, women-led productions, and post-screening Q&As where everyone will pretend not to be starstruck, it is shaping up to be one of the most emotionally fulfilling ten-day stretches of the year.
Expect genre-hopping aplenty: from Nayla Al Khaja’s Three, which looks at horror through a local lens, to Mira Shaib’s Beirut road-trip comedy Arzé. Bonus points to Mond — which features an Austrian martial artist navigating the inner world of Jordanian sisters.
Opening night also features Majlis KaramAllah, a Sudanese-inspired performance involving poetry, praise, and presumably a few goosebumps. Highly recommended for those who enjoy art with a side of spiritual transcendence.
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Fresh Perspectives

When? May 7–31
Where? Opera Gallery, Dubai
Opera Gallery Dubai presents Fresh Perspectives, a group exhibition running from May 7 to 31. The show brings together six distinctive contemporary painters — Xevi Solà, Thomas Dillon, Adrián Navarro, Gustavo Nazareno, Miguel Sainz Ojeda, and Alex Sutcliffe — each offering a unique artistic vision.
Spanning diverse geographies and styles, the exhibition celebrates a multiplicity of approaches to figuration, abstraction, and cultural storytelling. From Solà’s dreamlike psychological portraits to Navarro’s architectural abstractions and Nazareno’s spiritual evocations, the works invite viewers to reconsider how we see and feel. Sutcliffe’s exploration of digital culture, Dillon’s emotive colour studies, and Sainz Ojeda’s mythic symbolisms further enrich this dialogue.
Curated to emphasise individual sensibilities and shared human experience, Fresh Perspectives foregrounds painting’s capacity to reflect a rapidly evolving world. This exhibition marks a significant moment in contemporary art’s regional conversation, inviting audiences to engage with new ways of seeing.

Arte Museum X Musée D’Orsay

Classic French art meets digital spectacle. Monet, but make it immersive.
When? From April 17
Where? Arte Museum Dubai, Dubai Mall
If you have ever looked at a Van Gogh and thought: “I wish this painting moved, played orchestral music, and smelled faintly of lavender” — you are in luck. ARTE MUSEUM Dubai has partnered with Paris’s iconic Musée d’Orsay to turn nineteenth-century masterpieces into a full-blown sensory odyssey. Think floor-to-ceiling projections, evocative scent diffusion, and a soundtrack that is one string section short of a full emotional breakdown.
The experience is equal parts art history and futuristic theatre, with over 100 works transformed into a walk-in moodboard. Monet’s lilies bloom across digital ponds, Degas’ dancers pirouette mid-air, and yes, Van Gogh’s Starry Night does swirl — in actual motion.
Academic purists, do not panic. The exhibition is curated with full scholarly rigour. One might call it a respectful reimagining. Or just a very fancy Instagram opportunity.

Kojo Marfo’s "HOME: Heart Of My Existence"

Where home is not a postcode but a personal crisis, artfully rendered.
When? Until May 31
Where? JD Malat Gallery Dubai
Afro-Surrealist sensation Kojo Marfo has arrived in Dubai with a solo show that redefines the idea of home — not as a place, but as a state of being, emotion, and occasionally disorientation. His new exhibition, HOME: Heart Of My Existence, features thirteen dazzling large-scale compositions that dance between tradition and modernity with the grace of a well-travelled ghost.
Expect Cubist echoes, Ghanaian symbolism, and Old Master techniques with a fresh, almost electric pulse. The works are bold. The colours do not whisper. And the message — about memory, identity, and what it means to belong — could not be more relevant in a city where home is more often a WhatsApp location pin than a fixed address.

Marina Abramović enters the fifth dimension at Soho House Cities Without Houses Dubai

You, too, can own a looping animation of an archetype and maybe enter another plane of reality.
Art Week in Dubai is no stranger to standout moments — but this year, one event shimmered just a bit more brightly in the cultural cosmos. Soho House Cities Without Houses Dubai took centre stage with an exclusive evening that introduced Marina Abramović Element (MAE) to the UAE for the very first time.
Held at the private home of architect and art collector Ali Mohammadioun, the gathering brought together a handpicked community of creatives for an experience that blended performance art, ritual, and digital innovation — with the signature ease and curation that only Soho House can deliver.
The evening marked the premiere of MAE, Abramović’s newest and most ambitious foray into digital art, created in collaboration with next-gen art platform TAEX and displayed by MCube. Guests were treated to the unveiling of Art, the project’s first chapter — an NFT drop that reimagines Abramović’s most iconic works through symbolic tokens and time-based cycles, drawn from Legend, a fictionalised narrative inspired by her own life and practice.
Blurring the line between dinner party and metaphysical awakening, the event captured the artist’s deep connection to ritual, transformation, and endurance — reinterpreted here through blockchain, immersive storytelling, and (yes) crystals.
Unfolding in three thematic drops — Art, Life, and the Marina Abramović Method — MAE is not just a series of NFTs. It is an invitation to participate in the legacy of an artist who once sat still for 736 hours. Only now, there are gamified mazes and digital moons involved.
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Instagram: @taex_com

Van Cleef & Arpels x Tashkeel: A Decade of Design

Where wind inspires chandeliers and wood consoles whisper in reclaimed tongues.
When? Until June 3
Where? Tashkeel Nad Al Sheba
Marking 10 years of the Emergent Designer Prize, Van Cleef & Arpels and Tashkeel have launched an exhibition that is equal parts history lesson and style showcase. Featuring works by designers from across the Gulf, the show highlights pieces that respond to the poetic theme “Inspiring Winds” — which, thankfully, no one took literally.
The standout? Dhow Kite by Hajar Al Tenaiji, a piece that merges traditional Emirati sailing heritage with sustainable play design. Other highlights include a chandelier inspired by erosion (No Beginning) and a console that looks like it was sanded by sea breezes (Breezeborn). If your idea of inspiration includes wind-shaped cork, sculpted wood, and sustainable storytelling — this one is for you.
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From Fragments to Coherence

A show for people who love meaning, memory, and materials that make you think.
When? Until May 10
Where? Sevil Dolmacı Dubai
Curated by İpek Ulusoy Akgül, From Fragments to Coherence brings together artists from across regions, media, and sensibilities. The exhibition ponders how fragments — material, conceptual, geographical — can somehow come together to make a whole. Or at least, something that feels like one.
Featuring textiles, installations, sculptures, and more, the works explore memory and transformation without the usual fanfare. No flashing lights. No immersive smells. Just thoughtful art, asking thoughtful questions. Sometimes, that is all one really needs.
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Sabine Boehl, Hala Schoukair