There are two respectable ways to spend June in Abu Dhabi. One is to stand outside and tell people, heroically, that “it is actually not too bad today”. The other is to behave like a person with access to both reason and air-conditioning, and go see some art.

Luckily, the city is making the second option very easy.

From creative workshops and intimate memory projects to photography, painting and exhibitions about the internal weather of crisis, June’s cultural calendar comes with enough indoor stimulation to justify cancelling at least three outdoor plans. Consider this your guide to feeling thoughtful, cultured and pleasantly chilled.

On Saturday, June 13, from 2–4 pm, The Reading Room hosts Reflection Cards, an immersive creative workshop led by Alina Kobalyan, an architect and multidisciplinary designer based in Dubai.

The session combines intuitive drawing and metaphorical exploration, guiding participants through exercises designed to bypass analytical thinking and access a more subconscious, emotional layer of expression. In less gallery-ready language: you will be invited to stop overthinking for two hours, which, in this climate and economy, already sounds like a luxury retreat.

Through drawing and reflection, the workshop offers a chance to connect with personal narratives and inner states. Participants will be encouraged to draw inner stories, explore emotional associations and see what appears when the rational mind is asked, very gently, to take a seat.

Open to adults aged 18 and above from all backgrounds.

Also on view this month is A Room of Our Own, extended through June 21, 2026, in the Project Space. Led by Surabhi Sharma, NYUAD Associate Dean for the Arts and Creative Practices and Associate Professor of Practice of Film and New Media, together with independent filmmakers Reena Mohan and Bina Paul, the exhibition explores the experiences of women film graduates in India and the “unremembered” stories of women’s labour in film.

The project brings together oral histories, photographs and film-related material contributed by more than 50 women graduates across generations. It reflects on their time at the Film and Television Institute of India, asking how women remember their years as film students, the films they imagined, the images they made and the ideas that shaped their place in cinema.

It is deeply personal, archival and political without needing to shout about it. The exhibition considers how film histories have often normalised patriarchal structures, while also making space for memory, friendship, ambition, nostalgia and all the things that rarely get filed neatly under “industry legacy”.

In other words, it isn't simply about who got to make films. It is about who got remembered for wanting to.

To visit the Project Space, please email the Art Gallery in advance to be registered in the visitor system.

Over at Cultural Foundation, The UAE is Beautiful brings together the works of locally based photographers in a wide-ranging exhibition exploring the country’s landscapes, people and sense of identity.

Inspired by a quote from President Sheikh Mohamed describing the country as “beautiful” and “a role model”, the exhibition is led by artist Khalid Al Hammadi and presents a collective portrait of the nation through themes of resilience, belonging and human connection.

Participating artists include Hamid Badr Musharbek, Ola Ibrahim Allouz, Reem Ali Abdullah, Abdulla Ibrahim Alhattawi, Yousuf Ahmed Al Qasimi, Salem Sarhan Al Sawafi, Rami Escandar Abboud, Shoaib Ahmed, Alia Sultan Al Joker, Mohammed Khaled Almessabi, Aisha Alhammadi and Noora Alhammadi.

Together, the photographs move between heritage and modernity, capturing personal and shared experiences across the Emirates. It is the sort of exhibition that reminds you the UAE isn't just a place of skylines and five-star lobbies, although, naturally, it does those rather well too. Here, the focus is on memory, landscape, people and the everyday moments that become quietly symbolic once someone points a camera at them.

Alongside the exhibition, visitors are invited to contribute their own photographs through a community initiative developed with Emirates Post. A dedicated postbox installed at the venue allows residents and visitors to submit images reflecting their own connection to the UAE, expanding the exhibition into a broader public archive of memory and place. Think of it as a national photo album, but with better lighting and no one’s thumb over the lens.

At Iris Projects, Interoception, the latest solo exhibition by Juma Al Haj, turns inward. Curated by Shamma Al Mheiri, the exhibition takes its title from the body’s ability to sense its internal state, and explores how moments of crisis are absorbed, processed and transformed into artistic expression.

Developed in response to the missile attacks reported in the UAE in early 2026, the exhibition traces Al Haj’s return to painting as a way of processing fear, anxiety and disruption. Through layered surfaces, fragmented text and gestural mark-making, the artist translates personal experiences into abstract works that speak to wider feelings of collective unease and resilience.

It is a show about what happens when the body keeps the score and the studio gets the receipt.

The exhibition marks a new chapter in Al Haj’s practice, which often draws on journaling, writing and sensory experience as tools for self-reflection. Several works were created in the immediate aftermath of the attacks and later developed into a larger body of work, forming a visual record of a period shaped by uncertainty.

While rooted in a specific moment, Interoception opens onto broader questions of memory, embodiment and how individuals internalise crisis. The result is deeply personal but widely resonant: a reminder that sometimes the most accurate weather report is the one happening inside the body.

If your idea of summer wellness involves fewer ice baths and more paper, texture and carefully arranged feelings, Healing Through Collage at The NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery’s Reading Room should be on the list.

Taking place on Saturday, June 20, from 2–4 pm, the workshop invites participants to explore the personal anchors that help them feel grounded in times of uncertainty: places, objects, colours, memories, routines and all the small things that keep the internal furniture from wobbling.

The session begins with writing before moving into collage composition, layering, texture and image-making. Along the way, participants are encouraged to experiment, reflect and discover unexpected visual connections. In other words, it is a chance to turn your coping mechanisms into something with a composition.