Abu Dhabi Art unveils three new talents for Beyond Emerging Artists 2025 exhibition
Abu Dhabi (ALETIHAD)Abu Dhabi Art has announced the artists participating in the annual 'Beyond Emerging Artists' programme, which commissions new work by up-and-coming UAE-based artists to exhibit at the fair each year.This year's edition will be curated by internationally renowned artist Issam Kourbaj, who has invited Alla Abdunabi, Salmah Almansoori and Maktoum Marwan Al Maktoum to develop new commissions to be exhibited at the Abu Dhabi Art Fair, which will take place on November 19 to 23 at Manarat Al Saadiyat. The new works will also be exhibited internationally after the fair ends. Beyond Emerging Artists seeks to give UAE-based artists exposure, enabling them to benefit from a mentorship programme offered by the guest curator.The selected artists will share artwork that spans installation, sculpture and conceptual storytelling, exploring themes of identity, memory, materiality and the layered histories of place. Curator Kourbaj commented on the selection: 'It was challenging to select just three participants for the programme from amongst so many exciting emerging artists put forward. Like many creatives around the world, young artists in the region are directing their gaze toward excavating the present and engaging with urgent matters of our time, whether environmental, social or historical. 'I very much look forward to working with the three selected artists and guiding their visual voices as they develop a body of work inspired by Al Ain, both as a source and a canvas for new ideas.'
Alla Abdunabi Abdunabi is a visual artist working in sculpture and installation. Her practice explores the afterlives of objects through storytelling that merges historical, personal and fictional narratives. She reflects on shifting histories and the material memory of place.'I'm honoured to be part of Beyond Emerging Artists this year,' said Abdunabi. 'With the support of Abu Dhabi Art and curated by Issam Kourbaj, I'll be exploring object histories in my presentation at the fair. In addition, through the Al Ain commission, I look forward to creating a site-specific work that listens to the buried histories of the land.'Marwan Al MaktoumAl Maktoum is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores the human condition through themes such as value, time, belief systems and the psyche. His practice is influenced by lived experience, folklore, storytelling, surrealism, language and metaphor.'I am honoured to have been selected as part of the Beyond Emerging Artists programme,' he said. 'I especially look forward to the mentorship of Issam Kourbaj and continuing the world-building approach of my work within the context of an art fair, as well as investigating the archaeological histories of our country in sites such as the ones found in Al Ain.'
Salmah Almansoori Almansoori is a multi-disciplinary artist, whose practice spans painting, sculpture and installation. Her work documents what is being erased - abandoned places, forgotten objects and fading traditions. By collecting fragments from these sites and transforming them into abstract yet intimate narratives, she explores themes of displacement, identity and emotional inheritance.'I'm grateful to be part of Beyond Emerging Artists this year. This opportunity allows me to deepen my exploration of memory and place, and to share stories from my hometown that are often overlooked. With the guidance of Issam Kourbaj, I look forward to developing a new body of work that reflects on transformation, loss and belonging.' she said.Beyond Emerging Artists is sponsored by Abu Dhabi Art's global partner HSBC and supported by Friends of Abu Dhabi Art, a group of philanthropists committed to supporting the art ecosystem in the UAE and chaired by Asma Seddiq Al-Mutawa.
Hong Kong Exhibition Abu Dhabi Art's global partner HSBC has announced that it will present works by the 2024 cohort of Beyond Emerging Artists in Hong Kong and London this year. The international exhibitions will feature works by the artists Fatma Al Ali, Dina Nazmi Khorchid, and Simrin Mehra Agarwal in a group show first curated by Lorenzo Fiaschi for Abu Dhabi Art last year. The exhibition will take place at Sotheby's Maison in Hong Kong from July 15 to 27 and afterwards in London. Spanning sculpture, sound, and textiles, the works reflect transformation, memory and the emotional connection between people and place. The travelling exhibition marks the Beyond programme's sixth international presentation and its first in East Asia.
Afra Almteiri, Acting Abu Dhabi Art Programmes Unit Head, said: 'We are proud to present the 2025 edition of Beyond Emerging Artists in Hong Kong for the very first time, marking an exciting milestone in the programme's journey. 'With the generous support of HSBC, this exhibition not only showcases the creativity and vision of emerging UAE-based artists but also builds a vital cultural bridge between the UAE and Hong Kong. It reflects our commitment to fostering dialogue, discovery, and the global reach of contemporary art from our region.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
36 minutes ago
- The National
Timeframe: From 2016 to 2023, Travis Scott's Abu Dhabi legacy ahead of his return
With more than $210 million in revenue across 78 shows, Travis Scott's Circus Maximus World Tour – set to hit Abu Dhabi on November 15 – is officially the highest-grossing solo rap tour of all time. But back in 2016, when the rapper first touched down in the UAE capital, he was a rising star. While he had a cult following even then, Scott was far from the global force he is today. Part of the line-up at the free Beats on the Beach concert series on the Corniche, on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Scott was a headliner on the third night, performing on the same stage as Lebanese powerhouse Nancy Ajram. Scott's performance came less than two months after the release of his second studio album, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight, which debuted at No 1 on the US Billboard 200 chart. 'Scott took to the Corniche stage like a rocket and in the space of a mere 15 minutes had the crowd sweating and shouting along to his Mad Hatter-esque raps and shuddering dystopian beats,' The National wrote of the 2016 show. For some fans, however, the intensity proved too much. The then-24-year-old paused his performance midway to allow an exhausted audience member to be escorted from the front. After ensuring the fan was OK, he warned the crowd that he wasn't finished: 'This is a Travis Scott show. If you can't handle that, you better leave because we all came here to party, right?' he said. Hours after his show, too, Scott wasn't done, turning up at Mad nightclub at Yas Island for another performance 'bounding around and whipping the late-night onlookers into a frenzy'. Scott was due to return to Abu Dhabi three years later, as one of the headline acts at the 2019 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after-race concert series, but suddenly pulled out three days before the show due to 'unforeseen circumstances', leaving many fans disappointed. 'While we are not contractually able to discuss the reason why, Travis couldn't do it because something happened that was totally out of his control,' John Lickrish, chief executive of organiser Flash Entertainment, told The National. 'Now we as a team are disappointed that this can happen so close to the show, but what I can say is that it was for extremely legitimate reasons and I feel empathy for him.' Rappers Future and Gucci Mane stepped in for Scott on the night. Scott returned to Abu Dhabi in 2023 for a blowout set, as the headliner of the inaugural Wireless Festival Middle East at Etihad Park, where he will also perform in November. The UK-import festival featured British rapper MIA, American rapper Lil Uzi Vert, Egyptian star Wegz and Iraqi rapper Ali Gatie performing across multiple stages. But Scott was the main draw of the event and he delivered an explosive show, blending surreal stage settings with his raucous onstage temperament. Scott was at the top of his game, The National reported, arriving on stage amid a cacophony of bass, strobes and smoke, opening with Hold That Heat and Highest in the Room, as he thundered around the stage as loyal fans mirrored him below. There were plenty of flames, smoke and exhilarating visuals with every song such as the genre-bending Stargazing, from 2018's Astroworld, performed in front of a kaleidoscopic wall of digital art.
The National
an hour ago
- The National
At Kashtat Amina, Mariam Almansoori serves up Emirati home cooking inspired by childhood memories
It begins with a kettle. Not the tall, sleek kind that whistles in designer kitchens, but the round, sturdy bronze squat vessel with a thickened base found in many Emirati homes 'It's the same one we used in our house in Abu Dhabi,' says chef Mariam Almansoori. 'Every day we used to boil the water and pour it into this big kettle with black tea with cardamom, cloves, sugar. The smell would fill the whole house.' The kettle is now just inside the entrance of Kashtat Amina, Almansoori's newly opened restaurant in Sharjah's Aljada district, with its suburban walkways and lush greenery. There's no sign beside it. No curated description. Just the quiet suggestion that memory lives in objects as much as it does in taste. For Almansoori, the decision to launch her first Emirati standalone restaurant – its name translates to 'Amina's picnic' after her mother – is more than a professional step. It's a homecoming. 'I had a lot of chances to open a restaurant before,' she says. 'But I always waited. I wanted it to be at the right time, in the right place, with the right meaning.' That meaning comes through strongest in the food, which draws directly from Almansoori's childhood meals. Dishes such as keema hamsa (minced meat sauteed with tomatoes and onions), grilled jeder (lamb shank with tamarind sauce, basmati rice and nuts) and thareed (bread soaked in meat broth with vegetables) appear on the menu not as nostalgic flourishes, but as cultural inheritances. 'It's not only about the food,' she says. 'Lots of people come and say: 'Chef, can we take this home with us?' It's just a flower on the table, or a cushion, nothing big. But to me, it's full of love. It's my mother's hand in it. I still feel her, even when I'm serving strangers.' Raised in Ras Al Khaimah, Almansoori grew up in a home with two kitchens – one run by her mother, the other often commandeered by her father – each guided by a distinct culinary philosophy that she learnt to absorb early on. 'If I ask mama how long to cook something, she never says minutes,' Almansoori says. 'She says: 'When the smell starts to change' or: 'When the rice starts to dance.' That's the kind of knowledge that stays with you.' Her father, also a skilled cook, brought a flair for presentation. 'He was all about hospitality,' she adds. 'He loved to garnish, while my mother didn't. They were always arguing about that.' Kashtat Amina carries both impulses – the quiet intimacy of home cooking and the polish of a well-run kitchen – in its expert take on rustic Emirati staples. The restaurant, bright and lined with woven baskets, with furniture and staff in indigo, is both modern and homely – and is full of local markers, from the kettle and old transistor radio to shelves of clay jars. A painting of Almansoori's mother Amina hangs proudly in the centre of the kitchen, her eyes warm in invitation. One dish that carries particular weight is the chicken maragooga, a stewed chicken with vegetables and thin bread layers. 'This was always loved by the family and guests,' she says. 'The pot would come straight from the stove to the table and we would eat it immediately.' That inherent sense of hospitality, so central to Emirati cuisine, is something she learnt from her mother. 'My mother used to make it when people came after the dhuhr prayer. It wasn't just food. It was the way she opened the house, welcomed people, showed care.' Almansoori's other ventures – including the popular Montauk in Abu Dhabi's Yas Island, where Sri Lankan rice might be topped with slow-roasted ribs and cinnamon coconut cream served alongside Emirati majboos and an apple Danish – have long embraced reinterpretation. But this time, she wanted to move in the opposite direction. 'I wanted to stop mixing. No fusion,' she says. 'I wanted to go back. Bring things to their original taste. To say: this is what we had in our houses. This is how it was done.' That backward glance, however, isn't about retreat. She speaks frequently about Emirati food as something underrepresented, not just internationally, but at home. 'If you go outside the UAE, you see restaurants from everywhere. You see Turkish, Lebanese, Japanese, but not Emirati. Even here in Sharjah or Dubai, how many restaurants are really doing Emirati cuisine? I don't mean owned by Emiratis. I mean the food.' And she's intent on giving those local flavours a global platform, with Almansoori hoping Kashtat Amina will be recognised if the Michelin Guide extends its UAE presence to Sharjah. 'We want to be ready, because there is a guideline that Michelin follows – from using organic produce to changing the menu regularly,' she says. 'We try to update parts of the menu every three months, not just to change, but to keep enhancing and evolving. There's a lot we still need to do, but I think we're more than capable – because we're doing it for the right reasons.' That desire to teach without diluting also informs her next venture: a culinary training academy for Emiratis as well as residents. 'I want to create a space where we train them from zero,' she says. 'Not just how to cook, but how to work in a kitchen, how to run a restaurant. 'I already have six or seven with me now. Some of them were not confident at first, but now they are leading the service. They are managing the guests. I'm so proud.' When asked what makes a dish truly Emirati, she doesn't hesitate. 'It's not the ingredients or technique. It's when you know what each one means and why we why we use turmeric, when we add ghee, how much to stir the rice. It's not rules. It's memory.' By the end of the visit, our own kettle of tea has gone cold. A young staff member moves to take it away, but she stops him. 'Leave it,' she says quietly. 'I just want to savour this moment a little more.'
Khaleej Times
an hour ago
- Khaleej Times
UAE: Power Slap makes highly anticipated return to Abu Dhabi in October
Power Slap, the world's premier slap fighting promotion, announced the return of Power Slap to Abu Dhabi on Friday, October 24 at the Space 42 Arena as part of Abu Dhabi Showdown Week, headlined by UFC 321. Last year, Power Slap hosted its first-ever international event, POWER SLAP 9: DUMPLING vs DA CRAZY HAWAIIAN in the UAE capital. A sold-out crowd witnessed an electrifying showdown between two of the world's best strikers, as former Power Slap Super Heavyweight Champion, Da Crazy Hawaiian, defended his title against No. 1 ranked Super Heavyweight, Vasilii 'Dumpling' Kamotskii, in a match that ended in a dramatic draw. Power Slap saw tremendous success in Abu Dhabi last year, captivating both local and international fans. POWER SLAP 9 generated over 700 million total views across social media platforms through promotional and event coverage content and drew global influencers with 1 billion+ followers. This marked a major step in the sport's international growth and highlighted the region's enthusiasm for combat sports. 'Power Slap has had 13 straight sold-out events, and is now heading back to Abu Dhabi, one of the premier fight capitals in the world,' said Power Slap founder Dana White. 'In just two years, Power Slap has exploded with nearly 30 million followers and close to 20 billion video views across our platforms. The Middle East is becoming a hotbed for Power Slap, and I'm excited to bring it back.'
