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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20261030
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20261109
DTSTAMP:20261028T101647Z
CREATED:20261026T121008Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261028T101647Z
UID:10014432-1793318400-1794182399@magpie.ae
SUMMARY:Sharjah Film Platform 9
DESCRIPTION:Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual celebration of indie/experimental cinema returns for its ninth edition with a 10-day lineup of films (26 of them) plus talks and artist development programmes. Screenings and events will take place at Mirage City Cinema\, SAF’s open-air theatre in Arts Square\, with some showings at VOX Cinemas at City Centre Al Zahia. \nOpening the festival is Letters (2025)\, an anthology of 17 short films by Josef Khallouf reflecting on Lebanon’s recent history. The programme also includes David Bim’s To the West\, in Zapata (2025)\, which follows a Cuban crocodile hunter’s struggle to provide for his family; Azeem Rajulawalla’s More Punk Than Punk (2025)\, a portrait of a Pakistani punk artist whose music brings together personal expression and political concerns; Minimals in a Titanic World (2025) by Philbert Aimé Mbabazi\, exploring an emerging friendship in the shadow of grief; and Hind Saeed Al Basti’s Alia & Meera (2026)\, a story of two best friends whose small lie uncovers a family secret. \nThe festival closes with Larissa Sansour’s highly rated recent feature\, An Incomplete Drowning (2026)\, a contemplation on the fragility of objects and their capacity to hold history. \nThis edition also premieres two newly completed short films supported by the Sharjah Film Platform Short Film Production Grant. In I Broke a Vase (2026)\, Asim Abdulaziz explores the haunting legacy of a former journalist; Fatima Wardy’s White Musk (2026) looks at the tensions that arise when a child is compelled to parent their own parent. \nAlways central to SFP is the Competition section\, showcasing documentary and fiction films released within the past two years. Nominated by an international committee of filmmakers and industry professionals\, all titles here are being shown in the UAE for the first time; a number of screenings will be followed by Q&A sessions with the directors. \nFilms in the Competition section are eligible for the Sharjah Film Platform Awards across four categories: Documentary Feature\, Documentary Short\, Fiction Feature and Fiction Short. \nThe Director in Focus segment honours an iconic filmmaker through screenings of their landmark films. This year the accolade goes to Abderrahmane Sissako\, whose poetic films explore themes of exile and memory across Africa; a selection of his films will be screened\, among them Timbuktu (2014)\, Bamako (2006) and Black Tea (2024: still above). Sissako will share insights into his practice in a masterclass on 7 November. \nThe full programme is here; most feature tickets are a bargain AED 15\, some screenings are free.
URL:https://magpie.ae/event/sharjah-film-platform-9/
LOCATION:[various Sharjah locations]
CATEGORIES:Festival,Film
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20261103
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20261109
DTSTAMP:20261105T092911Z
CREATED:20261104T100222Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261105T092911Z
UID:10014503-1793664000-1794182399@magpie.ae
SUMMARY:Dubai Design Week
DESCRIPTION:Dubai Design Week goes from strength to strength as the region’s design festival and establishing Dubai’s position as the design capital of the Middle East. This time there’s a very busy\, very programme around d3 includes installations\, new commissions\, exhibitions\, talks\, workshops\, a marketplace\, and the region’s leading fair for contemporary design\, Downtown Design. \nThe Middle East’s leading mainly-B2B fair for contemporary and high-quality design is full of globally acknowledged design brands\, but there’s a lot of regional design talent on show too – more than in previous years\, we felt\, which is probably a measure of the increasing confidence and the opportunities available. Downtown Design has its own website (here)\, is open to the public midday to 8pm 5 to 8 November (to 6pm on the last day)\, and unlike most DDW features has an entrance charge – AED 80 per day\, AED 150 for four days. \nElsewhere exhibitions abound. Many are experimental\, even esoteric\, but most are genuinely stimulating and several are bursting with practicality. We particularly liked the UAE Designer Exhibition\, always a showcase of how younger designers are approaching the constraints and possibilities of applying materials to cultural identity; and Woods Bagot’s reflections on a busy 25 years in the region\, from hospitality design to urbanism. \nFive design practices have been selected for Abwab 2026\, DDW’s long-running commissioning programme – Dalia Rafeh\, Grace Shieh\, Kanaka Raghavan\, UBIK and VARUSSI\, founded by Owais Asif Khan and Samreen Junaid Wani. \nMoving away from its previous format of individual pavilion\, Abwab this time is a curated indoor group exhibition; its theme\, In Other Words\, seeks to look beyond language as speech or writing to the visual\, material and spatial systems through which knowledge\, memory and meaning are produced and exchanged. Audiences are able to move around\, between and through the works; so In Other Words considers language as something that can be inhabited\, inherited\, interrupted\, reassembled and understood differently according to where we stand. The responses to this brief are genuinely interesting – we particularly liked Dalia Rafeh’s Shhhhhhhh\, a 7m installation of red light that repeats the familiar Arabic letter ش and its association with the call for quiet. \nThe other big public-facing event is the Urban Commissions prize\, which this year went to Three Gardens and a Room from Reem Nassour’s NAO Architects studio – which “explores how the spaces around us can shape the way we feel\, move\, gather and connect”. The project reimagines the garden through interconnected environments arranged around a shared central space; it’s an exercise in deploying foliage\, colour\, shade\, thermal comfort\, materiality and filtered light to create variety for the visitor. \nAnd at the weekend (7-8 November\, ) the Marketplace will feature 80+ independent makers\, homegrown businesses and entrepreneurs\, alongside F&B and live performances. Always buzzy\, always interesting; check out the participants here. \n \n 
URL:https://magpie.ae/event/dubai-design-week/
LOCATION:d3
CATEGORIES:Design fair
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20261106
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20261207
DTSTAMP:20261105T134112Z
CREATED:20261105T134112Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261105T134112Z
UID:10014509-1793923200-1796601599@magpie.ae
SUMMARY:Children's Biennial
DESCRIPTION:What a good idea this is: the Abu Dhabi Festival is running the first outdoor children’s art biennale in the Middle East Under the theme How the World Feels\, the Biennale will explore how children experience the world through touch\, sound\, movement and light. \nFeaturing works and workshops by UAE-based artists and an international collaboration with National Gallery Singapore\, the Biennale – curated by Dana Almazrouei – will offer family sessions\, workshops and an interactive guide Nine participating artists are Alia AlShamsi\, Aya Afaneh\, Hana El-Sagini\, Moza Almatrooshi\, Moza Almazrouei\, Meera Almazrooei\, Nada Almosa and Sarah Afaneh\, plus Indonesian artist Eko Nugroho; says the blurb\, “they will transform Umm Al Emarat Park into a space where audiences of all ages can encounter art through touch\, sound\, movement and light … Through open-ended experiences\, children are invited to experiment\, question\, collaborate\, imagine and create their own meanings”. \nSays Dana Almazrouei: “We wanted to ask the kind of questions adults often stop asking: what stories lie beneath the soil? How does sound travel through a park? Working with each artist\, we thought first about how a child would experience the piece\, and what they might carry with them afterwards … Play is how children come to understand the world. As historian Johan Huizinga observed\, play creates temporary worlds shaped by shared rules and imagination\, and that’s what we hope this park becomes. It isn’t just a way to make art accessible; it’s how children think\, discover and build their own stories\, together.”
URL:https://magpie.ae/event/childrens-biennial/
LOCATION:Umm Al Emarat Park\, Abu Dhabi
CATEGORIES:Art,Family/kids
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20261107
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20261108
DTSTAMP:20261022T140834Z
CREATED:20261022T140834Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261022T140834Z
UID:10014427-1794009600-1794095999@magpie.ae
SUMMARY:The Ugly One
DESCRIPTION:Two further performances of Marius von Mayenburg’s very dark comedy about beauty\, identity and getting ahead in life;when the plastic surgery bandages come off\, Lette soon learns that there is such a thing as too beautiful … The Junction did this play a year ago to much acclaim; Gillian Rhodes again directs\, with a very good set by Lina Younes. The production features Audrey Jegu\, Keenan McFadzean\, Patrick Albrecht and Sadiq Saboowala. \nThere are performances on 7 and 8 November at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. \n  \n 
URL:https://magpie.ae/event/the-ugly-one-4/
LOCATION:The Junction\, Unit H72\, Alserkal Avenue\, Dubai\, United Arab Emirates
CATEGORIES:Theatre
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20261107
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20261108
DTSTAMP:20260913T155525Z
CREATED:20260913T155525Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260913T155525Z
UID:10014118-1794009600-1794095999@magpie.ae
SUMMARY:CLOSING TODAY Bénédicte Gimonnet: What We Carry Becomes the Terrain
DESCRIPTION:Aisha Alabbar Gallery’s newly renovated space reopens with a solo exhibition by the UAE-based French artist that features paintings\, screen prints\, drawings and textile works. The theme is a pivotal journey to Peru and a renewed engagement with the roots that have long informed her practice; the rainforest\, in particular\, is treated as “a site of reckoning\, where recollection\, imagination and lived experience converge … Windows\, façades and thresholds surface within dense vegetation\, setting the human impulse to define and contain against everything around it that refuses a fixed boundary”. \nThe exhibition also introduces the Gran Eco series\, with tall vertical works isolating personally significant sites from countries where Gimonnet has lived (“an echo implies distance\, delay\, memory and transformation\, a place returning altered …”
URL:https://magpie.ae/event/closing-today-benedicte-gimonnet-what-we-carry-becomes-the-terrain/
LOCATION:Aisha Alabbar Gallery\, Warehouse C19\, Alserkal Avenue\, Dubai
CATEGORIES:Art,Exhibition
GEO:25.1196663;55.217749
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20261107
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20261108
DTSTAMP:20261003T111507Z
CREATED:20261003T111507Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261003T111507Z
UID:10014260-1794009600-1794095999@magpie.ae
SUMMARY:Artist’s Garden: Amphibious Timelapse by the Rice Brewing Sisters Club
DESCRIPTION:Amphibious Timelapse by South Korean collective the Rice Brewing Sisters Club (RBSC) is the 2026-2028 Artist’s Garden commission at the Jameel – the Artist’s Garden being a space for artists to create\, cultivate and experiment with the conceptual limits of the ‘garden’ through a research-led commissioning process that responds to local and regional environmental concerns. \nRBSC is an artist collective established in 2018 exploring the notion of ‘social fermentation’ as an artistic form and work across visual art\, performance\, writing\, oral history\, ecological thinking and ‘auntie’s wisdom’. Amphibious Timelapse traces a continuum between land and sea; its guiding question “how are amphibious beings interconnected?” directs attention to the plants at the soil–sea interface. Plants such as mangroves and other halophytes resist any firm division between earth and sea; sabkhas\, salt marshes and tidal flats are understood not as boundaries but as continuums — the shared medium through which the meeting of soil and sea is sustained\, negotiated and made legible. \nStructured over two years\, Amphibious Timelapse unfolds across phases\, functioning as a garden\, a lab and a kitchen that is home to local species of halophytes. These plants embody different tactics of living with\, rather than against\, arid saline soil and salty coastal wetlands that define UAE’s distinctive ecology. Through them\, RBSC traces amphibious adaptability\, resilience and kinship with their salty landscapes. \nCurated by Daniya Jawwad and Indranjan Banerjee. \nTo 27 September 2028.
URL:https://magpie.ae/event/artists-garden-amphibious-timelapse-by-the-rice-brewing-sisters-club/
LOCATION:Jameel Arts Centre\, Al Jaddaf\, Dubai
CATEGORIES:Art,Exhibition
GEO:25.216757;55.3309395
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Dubai:20261107T120000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Dubai:20261107T180000
DTSTAMP:20261103T163151Z
CREATED:20261103T163105Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261103T163151Z
UID:10014499-1794052800-1794074400@magpie.ae
SUMMARY:Water as a Common Ground: Notes from a Majlis
DESCRIPTION:Day one of a weekend symposium on water – “two days of conversations\, presentations and artistic exchange exploring ecological\, social\, mythological and poetic dimensions of water\, bringing together artists\, scientists\, legal thinkers and researchers”. \nThis symposium explores climate-affected water systems\, their vulnerable ecologies and the possibilities opened by socially engaged artistic practice. Through public consultations and presentations\, the programme traces waterways and their communities\, considering ancestral relationships to water\, disappearing geographies\, hydraulic justice and colonial legacies of ecological control. \nParticipating artists and experts include Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos\, Khalil Walji\, Dr. Aaron Bartholomew\, Rohan D’Souza\, Reem Rizk\, Naeema Ali\, Sherko Abbas\, Waral Prakalp\, Maghras and Hosting Lands. \nFree\, but RSVP here.
URL:https://magpie.ae/event/water-as-a-common-ground-notes-from-a-majlis/
LOCATION:Jameel Arts Centre\, Al Jaddaf\, Dubai
CATEGORIES:Symposium
GEO:25.216757;55.3309395
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Dubai:20261107T133000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Dubai:20261107T173000
DTSTAMP:20261026T104408Z
CREATED:20261026T104408Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261026T104408Z
UID:10014431-1794058200-1794072600@magpie.ae
SUMMARY:Map-Making Workshop: ‘Places We Carry’ and ‘Atlas of Shared Place’
DESCRIPTION:A free two-part workshop led by cultural practitioner and educator Nanelle Jayawardene that explores how memory and experience shape our sense of place\, “inviting participants to engage in a form of map-making that foregrounds our personal encounters with a space”. This process raises questions about conventional cartographic methods and assumptions – “often grounded in colonial knowledge systems” – that reveal ‘place’ to be a concept that varies between individual perceptions and across time. \nThe workshop draws inspiration from the current exhibition at Ishara The sky held it\, the earth remembered (till 15 December) and will begin with a tour of the show. It responds to Shahana Rajani’s portrayal of communities that sustain their relationship with home through painting\, as well as Sarker Protick’s documentation of the incremental changes witnessed by his neighbourhood in Dhaka over 15 years. \nThe schedule: \n1.30-3pm Places We Carry\n3-4pm Break\n4-5.30pm Atlas of Shared Place  \nRSVP here – there’s only 12 spaces for each workshop.
URL:https://magpie.ae/event/map-making-workshop-places-we-carry-and-atlas-of-shared-place/
LOCATION:Ishara Art Foundation\, Alserkal Avenue\, Dubai
CATEGORIES:Workshop
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Dubai:20261107T170000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Dubai:20261107T190000
DTSTAMP:20261105T154853Z
CREATED:20261105T154853Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261105T154853Z
UID:10014521-1794070800-1794078000@magpie.ae
SUMMARY:SAF Book Club Meetup: Social Class and Cultural Capital in Literature
DESCRIPTION:SAF’s November book club meetup asks what literature can teach us about how social class and cultural capital dictate and uphold hierarchies\, examining depictions of social strata and elite cultural spaces in books such as Babel by RF Kuang\, Erasure by Percival Everett and Bunny by Mona Awad.
URL:https://magpie.ae/event/saf-book-club-meetup-social-class-and-cultural-capital-in-literature/
LOCATION:SAF Photography Gallery\, Al Manakh\, Sharjah
CATEGORIES:Book club,Photography
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Dubai:20261107T200000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Dubai:20261107T210000
DTSTAMP:20261103T105712Z
CREATED:20261030T113543Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261103T105712Z
UID:10014483-1794081600-1794085200@magpie.ae
SUMMARY:UAE National Orchestra: Sing for the Nation
DESCRIPTION:This concert by the UAE National Orchestra and choir puts the emphasis on ‘national’ with “an evening where we come together in love for the nation\, sharing moments of pride and belonging … a space where we gather as sons and daughters of this homeland – citizens and residents alike”. \nThe programme includes melodies from the 1970s to the present that have accompanied national celebrations and defined moments in the country’s history; this time\, students from the Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge’s (ADEK) Nabati Poetry initiative will join the Orchestra and Choir on stage. Nabati poetry\, the vernacular verse of the Arabian Peninsula\, has carried the history and identity of the Emirates across generations. In the UAE’s Year of Family\, the students’ voices are a reminder that love for the nation is handed down from one generation to the next. \nFirst staged at Dubai Opera in May 2026\, the current version of the concert travels to four more emirates – as well as Abu Dhabi\, it goes to Al Ain (20 November)\, Fujairah (28 November) and RAK (1 December).
URL:https://magpie.ae/event/uae-national-orchestra-sing-for-the-nation-2/
LOCATION:The Arts Center @ NYUAD\, NYUAD Campus\, Saadiyat Island\, Abu Dhabi\, United Arab Emirates
CATEGORIES:Concert
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Dubai:20261107T200000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Dubai:20261107T220000
DTSTAMP:20261027T172739Z
CREATED:20261027T172618Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261027T172739Z
UID:10014456-1794081600-1794088800@magpie.ae
SUMMARY:Joke Hub
DESCRIPTION:A regular Mad Cat Comedy night – “Dubai’s wildest comedy show on Saturday” at “the first purpose built comedy room in the country”. The cover charge of AED 99 includes two F&B coupons.
URL:https://magpie.ae/event/joke-hub-5/
LOCATION:Canopy by Hilton Dubai Al Seef\, Al Seef Street\, Umm Hurair 1\, Dubai
CATEGORIES:Comedy
GEO:25.2558677;55.310187
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Dubai:20261107T203000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Dubai:20261107T220000
DTSTAMP:20261022T110846Z
CREATED:20261022T110817Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261022T110846Z
UID:10014420-1794083400-1794088800@magpie.ae
SUMMARY:The Laughter Factory Premium Comedy Club
DESCRIPTION:Another good-looking bill for this month’s Laughter Factory tour\, with some ace local comics joining the international imports: \nJohn Fothergill\nNicole Drinkwater\nValentina Danubio\nAhmed Kasid \nThe rest of the schedule: \n8 November The Club\, Abu Dhabi 7pm\n13 November Radisson DAMAC Hills 8.30pm\n14 November Studio One Hotel 7pm\n14 November Dukes The Palm 8.30pm \n 
URL:https://magpie.ae/event/the-laughter-factory-premium-comedy-club-6/
LOCATION:Studio One Hotel\, Dubai Studio City\, Dubai
CATEGORIES:Comedy
GEO:25.0346728;55.2397317
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