Galleries and institutions across Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah are presenting a diverse programme of exhibitions as the UAE's autumn art season gathers pace.
Current highlights include Provisional Sanctuaries at Tashkeel, where Malaysian artist Shamin Sharum explores the overlooked prayer spaces that offer a sense of belonging in the UAE; Bodies that Make, Bodies that Grieve at NYU Abu Dhabi, which brings together eight women artists using ceramics to explore emotion and lived experience; and Spices and Wonders: Sailing the Indian Ocean at Louvre Abu Dhabi, tracing 1,000 years of maritime trade and cultural exchange.
Elsewhere, exhibitions examine memory, migration, identity and environmental change, with works spanning painting, photography, sculpture, textiles and moving image.
Here are 15 exhibitions to see across the UAE.
1. Unseen Script at Rizq Art Initiative
In Unseen Script, curated by Meena Vari, works by 10 artists explore the patterns people form through repetition, from familiar journeys and domestic objects to changing landscapes and gestures that become so ingrained they often go unnoticed.
The exhibition brings together art by Najat Makki, Nujoom Alghanem, Nasir Nasrallah, Abdulla PA, Ana Escobar Saavedra, Fadi Balhawan, Ismail Al Rifai, Joanna Barakat, Neveen Abu Samra and Simrin Mehra Agarwal. Across painting, sculpture, assemblage and mixed media, the artists return to recurring subjects within their practices, revealing how personal habits and ways of seeing become a kind of visual script.
Several works draw on the relationship between people and their surroundings. Abdulla reflects on abandoned homes and the ways nature reclaims human-made spaces, while Saavedra transforms seashells into delicate assemblages. Nasrallah draws on memories of his grandfather’s antique shop, Makki extends her abstract practice into steel and Alghanem examines the cityscape as a contemporary horizon.
While the exhibition touches on the way technology can identify and predict human patterns, its focus remains on subjective experience, asking what memory, consciousness and observation can reveal that data cannot.
Until October 28; Abu Dhabi
2. Taking Form at The Third Line
Taking Form is Rana Begum’s fifth solo exhibition at The Third Line, bringing together new works across textile, linen, wood and paper that continue her exploration of light, colour, geometry and material.
Large wool tapestries suspended from the ceiling form the centre of the exhibition. Woven with geometric patterns, their appearance shifts as visitors move around them. Elsewhere, diluted acrylic has seeped into linen, while smaller works on paper and wooden panels explore interactions between colour and surface.
The exhibition introduces a greater sense of softness to Begum’s practice while retaining the abstraction and geometric structures that have long shaped her work.
Until November 10; Dubai
3 & 4. Between Land and Sea, and Between a Fold and a Memory at Leila Heller Gallery
Two exhibitions at Leila Heller Gallery consider Emirati identity and heritage through the work of Azza Al Qubaisi and Karima Al Shomely.
Al Qubaisi’s Between Land and Sea, curated by Aysha Al Hemeiri, surveys a multidisciplinary practice spanning intimate jewellery and large-scale public works. Her use of natural resources and materials connects the UAE’s desert and coastal environments with ideas of memory, identity and place.
In Between a Fold and a Memory, Al Shomely turns to the clothing, textiles and objects associated with Emirati women. Photography, sculpture, textile and video explore how materials such as the burqa and traditional fabrics can carry memories of labour, social change and cultural knowledge across generations.
Until November 10; Dubai
5. Sojourner: The Difference is the Same at Efie Gallery
Kenyan artist Maggie Otieno transforms reclaimed materials into vessels of memory in Sojourner: The Difference is the Same, her first solo exhibition with Efie Gallery.
Otieno’s practice has centred on distressed and discarded materials for almost three decades. The exhibition includes works made from 150-year-old railway sleepers, whose histories are tied to East Africa’s colonial railway network, alongside sculptures incorporating fragments of wooden canoes produced during a residency at El Anatsui Studio in Ghana.
By cutting, assembling and reconfiguring these materials, Otieno shifts objects once associated with movement and infrastructure into forms concerned with stillness, memory and passage.
Until November 13; Dubai
6. The Horizon We Inherit at Iris Projects
Emirati artist Eman Al Hashemi examines the changing rhythms of urban life in the UAE in The Horizon We Inherit, her first solo exhibition with Iris Projects. Working across ceramics, printmaking and mixed media, she considers how cities shape attention, memory and everyday routines.
The sun, street lights, buildings and roundabouts recur throughout the works, turning familiar features of the UAE cityscape into forms that can appear both recognisable and strange. Al Hashemi is particularly interested in the routes people repeatedly travel and the traces left behind as places are altered through construction and redevelopment.
Rather than treating the built environment as a backdrop, the exhibition considers it as an active force in daily life and asks what remains when familiar places survive only through photographs, maps, memories or repeatedly travelled routes.
September 26 to November 26; Abu Dhabi
7. Provisional Sanctuaries at Tashkeel
Dubai-based Malaysian artist Shamin Sharum explores the overlooked prayer spaces found across the UAE in Provisional Sanctuaries, his solo exhibition at Tashkeel. Drawing on the small, often temporary musollas established in warehouses, industrial areas and workplaces, the exhibition examines how modest architecture can provide a sense of familiarity and belonging in a city shaped by migration.
The exhibition grew from Sharum's experience of encountering a makeshift prayer room shortly after moving to Dubai. Working across painting, drawing, architectural models and axonometric studies, he reconstructs these spaces through memory, focusing on improvised minarets, hand-painted signs, prayer mats and other details that reflect the communities using them.
Trained as an architect, Sharum considers how temporary structures can acquire lasting emotional significance through shared rituals and everyday use. One model recalls a prayer space he encountered during his first days in Dubai that has since been demolished, turning an architectural study into an act of remembrance. Developed following his participation in Tashkeel's Critical Practice Programme, the exhibition connects the impermanence of these spaces with wider experiences of displacement, identity and belonging.
Until November 27; Dubai
8. Vantage Point 13 at Sharjah Art Foundation
Vantage Point 13 marks a new chapter for Sharjah Art Foundation's long-running photography platform as it moves into the institution's dedicated photography gallery. Selected through an international open call, six artists present commissioned photographic series developed with the foundation's curatorial and production support.
The exhibition features work by Adam Rouhana, Guanyu Xu, Latifa AlBokhari, Luisa Dorr, Maheder Haileselassie and Sathish Kumar. Together, their projects demonstrate the breadth of contemporary photography, reflecting the programme's evolution from a platform for UAE-based photographers into an international exhibition embracing diverse approaches.
Introduced in 2013, Vantage Point has become one of the UAE's key photography initiatives. This edition also reflects the foundation's expanded commitment to supporting new work, with participating artists receiving production funding to create original projects specifically for the exhibition.
Until November 29; Sharjah
9. Fellow Travellers at Tabari
Fellow Travellers brings together six artists whose practices span Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, exploring themes of movement, memory, kinship and cultural exchange. Conceived and curated by artist, author and cultural historian Professor Omar Kholeif, the exhibition draws on nearly two decades of research, writing and personal relationships with artists.
The exhibition features works by Sonia Balassanian, Jai Chuhan, Luísa Correia Pereira, Lalitha Lajmi, Irene Scheinmann and Kholeif himself. Bringing together landmark pieces and rarely seen works, it traces artistic journeys across different geographies, considering how experiences of migration, cultural encounters and personal histories shape creative expression.
Accompanied by a limited-edition publication featuring original poetry and a curatorial essay, the exhibition also reflects Kholeif's longstanding interest in the relationships between artists and the connections that emerge across generations and borders.
Until November 30; Dubai
10. Bodies that Make, Bodies that Grieve at NYU Abu Dhabi Project Space
Bodies that Make, Bodies that Grieve brings together eight UAE-based women artists whose practices are rooted in the Global South, exploring how ceramics can give physical form to emotions and experiences that are difficult to express through words. Curated by Shafeena Yusuff Ali, founder and executive director of Rizq Art Initiative, the exhibition examines the relationship between the body, clay and emotional expression.
The exhibition features sculptures by Nujoom Alghanem, Mirna Bamieh, Moza Al Falasi, Malavika, Parneet Pahwa, Zahra Shafie, Laiba Sherin and Haseena Suresh. Working on an intimate, domestic scale, the artists use processes of pressing, building, breaking and firing clay to explore memory, grief and lived experience.
Presented at NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery's Project Space, the exhibition also considers the long-standing relationship between ceramics, women's labour and practices of care. By focusing on the physical act of making, it positions clay as a medium through which personal experiences and emotions can take shape.
October 22 to December 13; Abu Dhabi
11. The Sky Held It, The Earth Remembered at Ishara Art Foundation
The exhibition brings together works by Shahana Rajani, Rohini Devasher and Sarker Protick to explore how land, water and the cosmos can act as archives of memory and history. Through photography, moving image and installation, the exhibition considers how ecological change and human intervention leave traces on the environment that can persist across generations.
Rajani’s three-channel film Lines That World a River focuses on communities displaced from the Indus Delta, where paintings and murals reconstruct villages submerged following the construction of dams and barrages. Devasher turns towards the cosmos with Latent Fields, monumental silk panels inspired by sunspots and other solar phenomena, while Protick’s Dhaka 1217 documents 15 years of transformation around the neighbourhood in Dhaka where he was born and continues to live.
Drawing together perspectives from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, the exhibition considers ecological decline across national borders, and the ways landscapes can preserve histories of displacement, destruction and resilience.
Until December 15; Dubai
12. Revelation at 421 Arts Campus
Emirati artist Juma Al Haj explores seclusion, reflection and personal transformation in Revelation, his first institutional solo exhibition.
Developed through 421 Arts Campus's Artistic Development Programme, it brings together painting, engraved glass, text, light, shadow and installation to consider how moments of uncertainty can lead to greater self-understanding.
The exhibition unfolds as a physical journey, beginning with Balaa, a painting concerned with trials and the ways people measure their lives, and Traces, a series of engraved glass panels whose inscriptions shift with light and shadow. It culminates in Hijr, a darkened, carpeted space centred on a water feature, where visitors remove their shoes and are encouraged to slow down and contemplate.
Al Haj's approach draws on journaling, philosophy and spiritual texts, extending the layered marks of his paintings into an environment visitors can move through.
Rather than presenting revelation as a final answer, the exhibition treats it as one stage in an continuing process of reflection and discovery.
Until January 10, 2027; Abu Dhabi
13. Paul Guiragossian: 100 Years of Art at Bassam Freiha Art Foundation
Paul Guiragossian: 100 Years of Art celebrates the centenary of the Lebanese artist's birth, bringing together significant works from his estate at Bassam Freiha Art Foundation in Abu Dhabi.
Developed in collaboration with the Paul Guiragossian Foundation, the exhibition offers an overview of the life and legacy of one of the leading figures of modern Lebanese and Middle Eastern art.
Known for his expressive use of colour and distinctive depictions of the human figure, Guiragossian (1926–1993) developed a visual language concerned with family, identity and the human condition. His paintings frequently explored themes of displacement, belonging and everyday life, reflecting both personal experiences and the wider history of the region.
Drawing primarily on works from the artist's estate, the exhibition traces the development of his practice and considers his enduring influence on modern Arab art.
October 17 to January 17, 2027; Abu Dhabi
14. Spices and Wonders: Sailing the Indian Ocean at Louvre Abu Dhabi
Spices and Wonders: Sailing the Indian Ocean explores 1,000 years of maritime trade and cultural exchange, tracing the routes that connected communities across East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, India, China and South-East Asia. Organised in partnership with the Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts in Paris, the exhibition brings together about 240 artworks and historical objects from 24 lenders.
The exhibition places the Arabian Gulf at the centre of its narrative, examining the region's pearl trade and the movement of spices, precious stones, textiles and religious artefacts. Highlights include six detailed models of historic vessels, objects recovered from shipwrecks, ancient navigational instruments and a third-century Buddha sculpture from present-day Pakistan.
Through specially created maps and immersive displays, the exhibition examines how sailors navigated using stars and coastal landmarks, while merchants and pilgrims carried goods, beliefs and artistic traditions between distant societies. Its historical narrative concludes in the 17th century, drawing attention to the extensive trading networks that existed before European powers came to dominate Indian Ocean commerce.
Until February 14, 2027; Abu Dhabi
15. A Board Game Adventure at Louvre Abu Dhabi
A Board Game Adventure transforms Louvre Abu Dhabi into a giant playground, using some of the world's oldest games to explore how people have connected across cultures for thousands of years. Designed for children but engaging for all ages, the exhibition traces the journey of games including chess, Mancala, Ludo and Carrom as they travelled between ancient civilisations and evolved into the games still played today.
The exhibition combines immersive installations with rare artefacts borrowed from international museums, including some of the earliest known board game objects from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran and India. Highlights include centuries-old chess pieces carved from ivory and rock crystal, engraved backgammon pieces, ancient six-sided dice and one of the earliest known predecessors of Ludo.
Interactive displays encourage visitors to solve puzzles, challenge artificial intelligence, play on oversized game boards and discover how strategy, chance and storytelling have always been part of human play. Throughout the exhibition, historical figures ranging from Queen Nefertari and Achilles to samurai Hatakeyama Shigetada are reimagined through playful “player profiles”, linking games to the personalities and cultures that shaped them.
Rather than presenting games as simple entertainment, A Board Game Adventure reveals them as cultural objects that have crossed borders, adapted to societies and brought people together for millennia.
Until April 25, 2027