Weekly UAE museum and gallery guide: Palestinian artist looks at home as refuge and place of loss

The National

8 hours ago

Two group exhibitions and a solo are the focus of this week's listicle.
At Zawyeh Gallery, Bashir Makhoul presents a poetic dismantlement of home, memory and displacement. At Aisha Alabbar Gallery, architecture is presented not as a fixed form, but as a concept with political and emotional residues. At Manarat Al Saadiyat, meanwhile, eight photographers map personal worlds by drawing from plants, sand and abandoned structures.
The Promise by Bashir Makhoul at Zawyeh Gallery
In The Promise, Palestinian artist Makhoul considers the duality of home as both site of refuge and mourning. The house is a central motif in the exhibition, rendered in its foundational form of a cube with a window and a roof. Through these, Makhoul assembles overcrowded clusters, assembling experiences of displacement cube by cube, while visually alluding to the state of refugee camps.
Other works include paintings from his Fractured Oblivion series, which juxtaposes flower petals with bullet holes. Then there are his experiments with electro‑plated 3D‑printed cubes, such as in My Olive Tree, presenting a unique take on the form that is symbolic of Palestinian identity and resilience.
Monday to Sunday, 10am-6pm; until June 30; Zawyeh Gallery, Dubai
Architectures of the In-Between at Aisha Alabbar Gallery
The three artists featured in this exhibition all identify architecture as a bedrock to their practice. Yet, they have gone on to reinterpret the discipline in new and diverse ways. Atefeh Majidi Nezhad hangs lace like memory in her Zero-G series. Nevine Hamza gives form to nebulous metaphysical ideas through photography, digital art, collage and painting. Finally, Layla Juma renders social structures into minimalist geometries, revealing coded systems through drawing, installation and sculpture.
Monday to Saturday, 10am-6pm; until August 23; Aisha Alabbar Gallery, Dubai
Cartographies, Revised: Manarat Al Saadiyat
This exhibition is the culmination of a four-month residency at The Photography Studio at Manarat Al Saadiyat. Eight emerging artists from across the world take a cartographer's approach to image-making, using it to chart personal histories and narratives. Aman Ali's photographs, for instance, trace maternal love through worn hands. Reem Hamid projects shifting rhythms of stillness and movement via sand and performance. Fares Al Kaabi mourns demolished homes and a bygone time through windows and doorways.