An hour of new material from the always excellent Valentina, this time on the people we love, the things they do that drive us crazy, and all those moments that make relationships so complicated.
One of the Candlelight favourites. Vivaldi wrote the original as concerti for violin and orchestra, but it's often arranged for a quartet – as here, performed by the Gulf String Quartet. The ambiance is (non-flammable) candlelight, of course. The performance [... more]
A monumental one-room installation that restages the Bangladeshi artist's The River Remembers. Originally commissioned by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation and created in 2023, this large-scale textile work has handcrafted threads mapping the colour of the water of the Teesta and [... more]
Bringing together paintings, archival photographs, sketches and ephemera produced after 2018, this exhibition promises an immersive encounter with Salah Elmur’s world – "where memory, landscape and identity merge and ripple through time", exploring the artist’s shifting sense of belonging and [... 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 intimate room where sitting in the [... more]
The final performance for this original comedy. Written and co-directed by top Dubai photo/videographer Ovidiu Dugulan, it surveys the final stretch of a ten-year siege of Troy, a job that should've taken three days ...
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, [... more]
Sehiri’s intimate drama follows four generations of Ivorian immigrant women as they find solidarity, conflict and sometimes a sense of displacement in one another’s company. We're dropped into the lives of Marie (Aïssa Maïga), Naney (Debora Lobe Naney) and Jolie [... 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 …
The Emirati artist's first solo exhibition features an imaginary bestiary on paintings, works on paper and ceramic sculptures. Al Falahi’s creatures each carry a feeling, a memory or a premonition, says the gallery: "Pieced together from what has stayed with the [... 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]
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]
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]
Amir Khojasteh's third solo exhibition with the gallery presents the first body of work he has developed after leaving his home country, Iran.
Following showings in Paris, Lyon, Seoul and Shanghai, this exhibition – "a strategic research project for L'ÉCOLE, at the crossroads of archaeology and the history of techniques, and goldsmithing craftsmanship" – demonstrates the skills and techniques in reproducing a Celtic [... more]
A spectacular demonstration of musicianship: two grand pianos, eight hands playing simultaneously, a programme of exciting rhythms and orchestral delights reworked for the keyboard. The programme: Charles Gounodx: Waltz from Faust Mozart: Overture to Le nozze di Figaro, K.492 Saint-Saëns: [... more]
Mad Cat Comedy's regular Thursday stop in Silicon Oasis promises "insane laughs every week". The door price of AED 99 includes one drink and popcorn.
“Dubai’s hottest comedy night” (aka the Mad Cat team) come to the moodily-lit speakeasy style bar in DIFC for a regular Thursday gig. The door price includes one drink.
"In this exhibition, memory becomes material: what stays, what fades, and what changes with time ... Through play and experimentation, Reem returns to lived experiences, reimagining them through the distance of memory and blurring the line between what is real [... more]
A pop-up exhibition by the New York-based Turkish artist in the hotel's lobby exploring migration, memory, identity and the meaning of belonging – "for me, home is not necessarily a place we return to, but something we carry, recreate, and [... more]
Bringing together personal histories and material experimentation, this exhibition – the first in the UAE by the Brazilian artist – reflects on growth, rupture and renewal, revealing how fragments of the past can take root in unexpected ways. With new [... more]
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, [... more]
This slightly trippy animation features two intrepid sisters, four-year-old Juliette and eight-year-old Carmen, who discover a passage into the extraordinary world of their favourite book, Kingdom of the Air Streams. Transformed into cats and separated from each other, the girls [... more]
When the extent of his ugliness is revealed, Lette turns to a plastic surgeon for help – but when the bandages come off, Lette soon learns that there is such a thing as too beautiful ... As appearances take centre [... more]
Mad Cat Comedy’s regular standup night at Xandros in Signature 1 Hotel, TECOM. The cover charge of AED 80 includes one drink.
Another good-looking bill for this month's Laughter Factory tour, with some ace local comics joining the international imports: John Fothergill Nicole Drinkwater Valentina Danubio Ahmed Kasid The rest of the schedule: 7 November Studio One Hotel 8.30pm 8 November The [... more]
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 [... 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]
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 [... more]
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". This symposium explores climate-affected water systems, [... more]
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". [... more]
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 [... more]
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 [... 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.
Another good-looking bill for this month's Laughter Factory tour, with some ace local comics joining the international imports: John Fothergill Nicole Drinkwater Valentina Danubio Ahmed Kasid The rest of the schedule: 8 November The Club, Abu Dhabi 7pm 13 November [... more]
Two final 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 [... more]
Two series of works, Junk Garden and Protective Shield, from the Ramallah-born artist. “The Field of Dreams is an exploration of formations of ‘steel’ in the public space from the perspective of the relationship between the self, the object, and [... more]
Day two 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". Extending Jumana Emil Abboud’s ongoing exhibition [... more]
A panel discussion exploring the intersections of cultural heritage, personal identity, and contemporary artistic practice through the work of Karima Al Shomely. The guest speaker is Nina Heydemann, Director of Maraya Art Centre; Nadia Al Hassani, Director of the Academy [... more]
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. Bridging the analogue and the digital, this session encourages you to craft hybrid musical works [... more]
Another good-looking bill for this month's Laughter Factory tour, with some ace local comics joining the international imports: John Fothergill Nicole Drinkwater Valentina Danubio Ahmed Kasid The rest of the schedule: 13 November Radisson DAMAC Hills 8.30pm 14 November Studio [... more]
A Mad Cat Comedy special featuring the group's main man at one of Dubai's coolest bars. The cover charge of AED 99 includes one drink.
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]
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]
A conversation moderated by Sarah Almehairi that explores Wafa Al Falahi’s practice across painting, sculpture, and drawing, "where instinctive encounters with material give form to the subconscious". The discussion traces how memory and dream take shape through the creatures and [... 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 …
A solo exhibition by the Syrian artist that includes large-scale portraits, a tile installation, sculptures, artist books, and works on paper. At the centre of Tallaa's practice is the face, not as portrait or likeness, but as witness; this exhibition, curated [... 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]
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