A hotel room turned archive, a filmmaker taking questions from across a screen, a chef cooking in a skate shop, chairs you have probably sat on without knowing their story, and a Sunday workshop about the cassette tapes someone's mother almost threw away. Some weeks in Dubai just line up like that.

Where? XVA Gallery

Just opened last week, and worth making the trip to Al Fahidi for. Charlie Koolhaas — artist, photographer, sociologist, and yes, daughter of architect Rem Koolhaas — has spent over twenty years turning exhibitions into immersive landscapes you physically walk through. Her work has shown up at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Shenzhen Biennale, and institutions across Europe and Asia. Dubai is not new territory for her either — the city has appeared in her practice before, in her 2020 book City Lust among other places.

For After the Image, she has taken a hotel room at XVA and turned it into a living archive of Dubai's modern architectural heritage. Photography, sculpture, textiles, garments — all in a space you can inhabit rather than just observe. The idea is that an archive doesn't have to be something you stand in front of; it can be something you wear, move through, experience from the inside. The exhibition runs until July 16. Free admission.

Where? Carbon 12

A group show of works on paper, selected by Judy Karkour, bringing together 14 artists from very different backgrounds. The premise is simple: paper as a finished medium, not a sketch. Not a stepping stone to something bigger — the work itself. The title refers to the corridor souls use to travel between worlds, to the thousand lives that live within one, and to those who resist conformity. Which tells you something about the mood of the selection.

Fourteen artists, fourteen approaches — collage, drawing, printmaking, gouache, pencil on black. One of them makes block prints using Aleppo laurel soap pressed onto handmade recycled paper, leaving traces of destroyed Syrian artefacts and human remains. Another has been drawing the same seated man over and over, trying to get at something that keeps slipping away. It is that kind of show.

Where? Cinema Akil

Every screening this month has ended with a standing ovation and an audience that didn't want to leave. If you have been meaning to catch this one, the window is closing — only a handful of dates left, and June 25 is the one worth holding out for. After the film, there is a live virtual Q&A with the filmmaker herself. The kind of conversation that tends to go places. Seats are limited, and they have been filling up.

Where? Gooder Skateboarding

A pop-up dinner inside a skate shop! Chef Erin is serving a four-course seasonal menu inspired by her childhood, 25 people per evening, 325 AED a head. Welcome bite included, curiosity encouraged. This is the second edition, which means the first one went well enough to do it again. Book via link before someone else takes your seat.

Where? Alserkal Avenue

You have probably walked past them, maybe even sat on one. The "tongue" chairs (which look literally like a tongue) scattered across Alserkal Avenue were designed by Omar Al Gurg and his Modu Method — created specifically for the Avenue, for connection, for the kind of pause that happens between things. This weekend, go find them.

Where? Bayt AlMamzar

Nada found a bag of cassette tapes in an attic. Her mother almost threw them away. She cleaned them, organised them, sat down and talked about what they meant. Her family didn't understand why — all the music is online anyway. But Nada's point is that a cassette remembers the hands that loved it. A digital file just remembers the song.

Out of that comes this: a workshop on memory, music, and family, using writing, collage, and zine-making. You will leave with your own zine folded to fit inside a cassette case, and it goes into a growing cassette zine library. Bring your own family photos and analogue materials. Everything else is provided. Free, 12 spots, noon to four.