Rend Beiruti guides visitors through her research display on the baqala as a vital urban entity in Dubai. The tour explores the histories of these neighbourhood grocery stores, tracing how they have shaped and been shaped by the city’s rapid [... more]
An evening of cinema, conversation and discovery, celebrating the richness and diversity of contemporary Emirati filmmaking. The films: Noor dir Carlos Thabit Al Mawaly (2024, 15 min) A young Emirati forms a special bond with a damaged pigeon and discovers [... more]
A second night of performances for Agatha Christie's play. It is a country-house thriller-comedy with clues aplenty and a good helping of plot contrivances – including a most convenient hidden door in the study that of course leads to a [... more]
The Dubai Camerata Singers presents “a musical love letter and tribute to the United Arab Emirates” in the shape of a programme of choral music from different cultures and traditions; the concert aims to reflect the stories of people who [... more]
A "breathtaking" show "through the heart and soul of Ireland". Created by Chris Hannon, former Lord of the Dance Star and also responsible for the global hit Murphy's Celtic Legacy, this performance brings dancers, musicians, and singers together to capture [... more]
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.
The Comedy Kix team does The H Dubai. There's a AED 75 minimum spend.
The final performances for H72 Productions' treatment of the Agatha Christie play – a country-house thriller-comedy with clues aplenty and a good helping of plot contrivances (including a most convenient hidden door in the study that of course leads to [... more]
Shezad Dawood’s 25-year career spans painting, textiles, sculpture, ceramics, film, performance and digital media. Fascinated by ecologies and architecture, his work connects art, science, music, environmentalism and technology to explore both alternative histories and futures, through a process of continuous [... more]
Recent works by Laila Majid and Inaam Zafar that explore the human body and its presence in contemporary life through metaphor and symbolism. In Majid’s practice, sculptural and photographic works unfold through slow revelation; Zafar’s practice explores themes of death and [... more]
Dawood's New Dream Machine Project centres on a 3m-high rotating and flickering light sculpture, an homage to artist and writer Brion Gysin's Dreamachine; driving the mechanism is a perforated cylinder emitting pulses of light at the frequency of the brain's [... more]
This Artist's Room traces forty years of Walid Siti's practice, including new sculptural commissions and material from the artist's studio. Across his body of work, structural forms mirror geological formations, rising summits, Mesopotamian ziggurats, and the Tower of Babel, all [... more]
A second and final chance to catch this "breathtaking" show that brings dancers, musicians, and singers together to capture "the magic of Ireland ... Prepare to be enchanted".
Sharjah Art Foundation’s Music and Sound Club is a series of fortnightly hands-on workshops and meetup sessions form anyone interested in music and sonic arts. In this first workshop on Tape Loop Manipulation, participants woll learn how to open, splice [... more]
An opportunity for feedback from a successful UAE-based illustrator – Ibrahem Swaid (Noobovich), whose work spans comics, games and visual development. This session is suitable for intermediate-level illustrators or comic artists working in character design, digital painting and concept art; [... more]
The Mad Cat team does the rather cool Moon Bar at the Sana Restaurant in Mina Al Salam – a great venue: quite intimate, few distractions. Featuring surprise drop-ins, fresh material, and “the kind of moments that only happen in [... more]
“A journey of ancient tradition and modern innovation” Spirit of the East is a contemporary musical collaboration built around the original compositions of oud maestro and composer Hooman Shirali, bringing together the colors of Eastern music with contemporary sounds, improvisation, [... more]
Ahmed Farag conducts the full UAE National Orchestra and Choir for the start of its second season, a concert programme of three new Emirati compositions that offer a musical journey through the UAE from its founding story and landscapes to [... more]
A summer-long group show for Luke Agada, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Ludovic Nkoth, and Naila Opiangah, curated by Brice Arsène Yonkeu – whose curatorial statement defines the show as "an encounter with works on paper and paintings that move between visibility and [... more]
Built from layers of sand collected in the UAE, chalk powder, pigments, and acrylic, the surfaces of Ahmad Tallaa's large-scale portraits at the centre of this show are dense and almost sculptural – as the gallery puts it, "Faces do [... more]
A two-act evening of improvised spells, scenes, and songs, entirely based on audience suggestions and featuring the Courtyard Playhouse’s most experienced improv performers plus guest performer and improv instructor Andrew Gentilli from the UK. After warming up with some games [... more]
Monaiseer’s solo show examines history through cycles, repetition and flows, while testing the unstable boundary between imagination and reality. The title references the current status of the Doomsday Clock and its measurement of humanity’s proximity to catastrophe; notions of war, [... more]
Mad Cat’s standup team at their regular stop at the Easy Tiger bar in Abu Dhabi's Al Ain Palace. The door price of AED 99 includes two drinks
Amir Khojasteh's third solo exhibition with the gallery presents the first body of work he has developed after leaving his home country, Iran. To 5 November. Right: Amir Khojasteh, Garden Landscape #2 (2026)
Sharif’s first solo exhibition in the UAE presents an autobiographical and very personal series of works about the struggles of private and artist life in a closed society – "a vulnerable, nuanced presentation of life”. The Bahraini artist uses colour [... more]
Rana Begum brings her textile works to The Third Line for the first time. Her fifth solo exhibition at the gallery features a new body of large-scale wool tapestries presented alongside works on linen, paper and MDF, all reflecting the [... more]
New works by the Kenyan artist Maggie Otieno, her first solo show here since the gallery began representing her in 2024 . Otieno’s practice centres on the transformation of reclaimed and distressed materials.; working across wood, metal, and mixed media, [... more]
Borrowed from the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, the title of this exhibition by by London-based artist Nada Elkalaawy “speaks to the tension between sensitivity, beauty, and emotional weight”, as the gallery has it. “Across a body of paintings developed through [... more]
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 [... more]
A group show for Lulua Alyahya, Rami Farook, Sohrab Hura, and Khaled Jarada that promises to take the viewer into “intimate, elusive worlds … Modest in scale, invite a form of looking that is closer and more inward, creating encounters [... more]
A visual meditation on the horizon as both boundary and promise, a visible line that remains perpetually distant. Alaa Itani's solo show brings together reverse glass paintings of horizons, blurred landscapes, and moving cloud formations; he explores landscape as acts [... more]
Sara Masinaei’s solo show explores how urban spaces shape memory, movement and lived experience: "through walking, collecting found objects and recording traces of overlooked surfaces, she treats the city’s ground as an active part of how we experience and navigate [... more]
An exhibition by seven emerging UAE-based artists, beneficiaries of Dom Arts' Studio Support Programme (introduced to gave artists space and time to develop their practices without requiring them to produce new work or meet predetermined outcomes). The programme gave each [... more]
An exhibition by seven emerging UAE-based artists, beneficiaries of Dom Arts' Studio Support Programme (introduced to gave artists space and time to develop their practices without requiring them to produce new work or meet predetermined outcomes). The programme gave each [... more]
Collaborative works from Tirdad Hashemi and Soufia Erfanian’s ongoing Flower series, unfolding across gallery walls covered with hand-drawn graffiti; rooted in the artists’ shared and individual experiences, the works consider what it means to care for, sustain and grow alongside [... more]
The final exhibition in the series The importance of staying quiet, "an attempt to acknowledge a minimal vocabulary within Pakistani art", focuses on conceptual and material practices shaped by stillness and abstraction. To 30 December. Right: Faheem Abbas, Untitled (2025)
A solo presentation by the French-Algerian artist and filmmaker that reinterprets The Conference of the Birds,a 12th-century epic poem by Farid ud-Din Attar, in which a flock of birds search for a mighty ruler and ultimately find their strength within [... more]
A new body of 15 paintings by the Kuwaiti artist that takes us into a life split between two worlds, London and Kuwait– considering what it means to live in two places, or "to be two Dalals" as the artist [... more]
Coke bottles seem identical, but differ subtly from one country to another. These variations in taste and appearance highlight the simulacral nature of the Coca-Cola bottle – a semblance of an imagined universal ideal. The incursion of multinational brands into [... more]
A mid-career exhibition dedicated to the work of the Emirati multidisciplinary artist, curated by Aysha Al Hemeiri. Ranging from intimate jewellery pieces to large-scale public works, Al Qubaisi's practice invites audiences to encounter the UAE's natural resources through space, structure, [... more]
A solo exhibition by the Mumbai-based artist; much of his work comes from what he has seen and handled there. Nai works with jute, newspaper, cardboard, used clothing, mosquito mesh and corrugated metal; he cuts, folds, compresses and layers these [... more]
Karima Al Shomely's work draws from the clothing, textiles and adornments of Emirati women. The burqa is a recurring subject, appearing in works that look at how it was made, worn and passed down through generations; Al Shomely also works [... more]
The Courtyard’s popular evening of elimination improv. Ten actors converge for a night of scenes, songs and games based on audience suggestions. After each round you score the players on a scale of 1 to 5, and the one with [... more]
Flamingo Live’s regular comedy club slot at the Coterie pub in Ibn Battuta Mall. The door price includes two drinks.
Maktaba is 421’s monthly gathering dedicated to collective reading, viewing, and discussion across disciplines. This session discusses theatre-making as a practice of solidarity, exploring how performance builds connections across geographies, identities, and movements. Facilitated by artist and theatre-maker Maitha Ali, [... more]
Founded by Emirati filmmaker and curator Nawaf Al Janahi in 2020, Cineolio‘s mission is focused on promoting short films and expanding their audience reach internationally. Its Cinenights screening series presents a diverse selection of short films on the big screen, [... more]
One of the most consistently funny of the Courtyard’s classic improv gigs: the speakers have to give a presentation on a slide deck they’ve never seen before, with the topic determined at random by the Wheel of Destiny. Each presentation [... more]
“Dubai’s hottest comedy night” (aka the Mad Cat team) come to the moodily-lit speakeasy style bar in DIFC for what looks like a regular every-other-Thursday gig. The door price includes one drink.
A Comedy Kix n evening "packed with stand-up comedy, good vibes, and plenty of laughs". The AED 90 door price includes two drinks.
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is preparing the local audience for its 11 December opening with a series of events at Manarat al Saadiyat “for the public to engage with artists, ideas and conversations that are shaping the new museum”. This one [... more]
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