This year’s Art Dubai’s Special Edition is free, open to everyone, and running at Madinat Jumeirah from 15 to 17 May. And the best part is, a lot of it is yours to take home. Not metaphorically. You can actually buy something you like, wrap it, and take it home.
Over 100 presentations spanning contemporary, modern, and digital practices fill the space, but what makes this year different is the energy behind them. Arab artists. GCC-born creatives. Homegrown voices that have been building something extraordinary, often without the fanfare they deserve. Creatives born and raised in this region, who kept returning up to the studio when the world outside made that feel almost absurd. Who made work anyway.
The programme this year is anything but minimal. Khalid Al Banna, Hashel Al Lamki, Rami Farook, Kevork Mourad and others have created large-scale installations woven directly into the fabric of the fair — work you don’t just look at, you walk through it. Made Forward brings the Dubai Collection into focus for the first time as a unified institutional body, while Pulse gathers Arab masterpieces from the Barjeel Art Foundation — Mahmoud Said, Samia Halaby, Safeya Binzagr — in one room, which is not something you take for granted. Moving, co-curated with Alserkal Avenue, puts 13 artists’ moving image works on screen across two locations, and Against Stillness with Sharjah Art Foundation brings live performance into the mix — raw, bodies-in-space, unmissable. The Global Art Forum hits its 20th edition this year, titled Before and After Everything — and if that doesn’t feel pointed right now, you’re not paying attention. The HUNA Talks pull in voices from across the creative industries on how art shapes the way we live and build identity. And the DXB Store is back, stocked with objects made by UAE-based designers and makers.
Come, most of all, because our generation is the one that gets to decide what Arab culture looks like next, and that’s a powerful decision being made live, as we write history.