Summons to summer with Ishara Art Foundation's ‘No Trespassing' show

Gulf Today

21-07-2025

'No Trespassing' marks Ishara Art Foundation's first summer exhibition (July 4 - Aug. 30). Curated by Priyanka Mehra, it channels the aesthetics of the streets into a white cube space. Six UAE-based and South Asian artists explore their relationship with the street, engaging with it as both subject and as a medium. Rather than attempting to define the street, the exhibition resists such definition, and more than a setting, the show is a collection of individual experiences that alternate between chaotic and orderly, gritty and beautiful, uninhibited and curated – much as street life. Mehra is Exhibitions Manager and Programmes Curator at the Foundation.
Signposts, building materials, pavements, lights, street art, scrapheaps and human traces become inscriptions of a city's movement. 'No Trespassing' looks at the streets as a site of deconstruction and reinvention, continually shaping and being shaped by those who live in and pass through them. The exhibition explores what it means to speak of art in, on and from the street.
The participating artists have created their works through on-site interventions, a kind of mark-making that mirrors the interaction of a city with its inhabitants. Upon entering the exhibition, the viewer encounters a large-scale mixed-media work by H11235 (Kiran Maharjan). As the artist was unable to be present on-site to create the piece, he explores the possibilities of mark-making from a distance. The work signals the void left by his absence.
An abstraction of a digital rendering, which is presented opposite, the creation presents the architectural elements shown in the original, while incorporating locally sourced building materials such as corrugated metal and engineered wood. Questioning the life of humans and the built environment, it explores the impact of material surroundings on the psyche. At the far end of the gallery, Rami Farook carves out four square metres of the wall, revealing its hidden structure.
Sara Alahbabi's installation.
The act exposes the vulnerability of the white cube and prompts reflection on the ownership of art and space. The removed sections are offered as a gift to Ishara's founder and team – symbolising trust, transparency and connection. 'The work honours the Foundation's history, while inviting shared custodianship and care for its future,' says Farook.
In the second gallery, Fatspatrol (Fathima Mohiuddin) presents 'The World Out There', consisting of what she calls 'scavenged' objects – discarded street signs, scraps of wood and posters – marked with drawings that extend beyond the mounted pieces and onto the surrounding wall. Adopting the persona of the flâneur – a lone figure who wanders through a city, observing and contemplating the urban landscape – she collects objects to rewrite their narratives using her own voice and language. For Fatspatrol, it is an act of reclaiming the street, which is systemically regulated, surveilled and commodified, according to her. It is a space where one is instructed to 'follow the signs', yet where new stories are continually being narrated, she notes.
In an alcove is Sara Alahbabi's 'For a Better Modern Something', an installation that explores Abu Dhabi's evolving urban fabric. Cement blocks printed with maps are joined together with LED tube lights, creating a grid-like structure against the surface of the wall and floor. The work is the result of Alahbabi's use of walking as a methodology in her practice, to experience the streets as a pedestrian in a city dominated by a culture of driving. Travelling on foot reveals new aspects of Abu Dhabi's identity, in which connections flow between communities, revealing a potential for mutual understanding across cultural and economic boundaries emerges. Khaled Esguerra's installation, displayed in the third gallery, challenges ongoing efforts to conceal the disorderliness of urban centres.
Detail from Sara Alahbabi's compositon.
Titled 'Heritage Legacy Authentic', the work responds to the redevelopment of historic neighbourhoods, carried out with the promise of preserving heritage and authenticity. Tiled across the floor are sheets of copier paper, a medium often used for informal advertisements, printed with words drawn from the promotional messaging of these projects and masked with blank carbon paper. The work invites viewers to stomp on, kick, thrash, tear and skid over it; it gradually reveals the printed words. Serving as a canvas for Salma Dib, the surrounding walls are covered with layers of traces, lettering, fragments and textured elements. Inspired by the walls of Palestine, Jordan and Syria, the artwork transforms the gallery into a palimpsest of thoughts and ideas, inscribed by multiple authors over time.
'No Trespassing' invites audiences to step into a dialogue between the street and themselves, and reimagine how one moves through, and leaves his mark on, the spaces he inhabits. The exhibition is accompanied by physical and virtual tours, as well as educational and public programmes. It is supported by reframe. Priyanka Mehra has a background in design and has navigated diverse roles in the arts that include public art commissions in the UAE, urban regeneration programmes in India and conceptualising Public Art Masterplans in the KSA.
She has worked on large-scale urban art festivals such as St+art Delhi and Public Art Commissions at Yas Bay, Abu Dhabi. Smita Prabhakar, Founder and Chairperson of Ishara Art Foundation, is an entrepreneur, collector and art patron who has been based in the UAE for over four decades. She is a member of the International Acquisitions Committee at Tate Modern (London), the Middle Eastern Circle of the Guggenheim Museum (New York), and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice). Sasha Altaf is the Director of Ishara Art Foundation.