This week’s exhibitions move between ritual, land, memory, and spiritual inquiry. From Ramadan evenings rooted in heritage to contemporary painting shaped by trauma, transformation, and longing, these shows trace how art holds space for reflection, resilience, and collective experience across museums, foundations, and galleries.
Layali Ramadan | Al Ain Museum
This special Ramadan programme transforms Al Ain Museum into an evening gathering space shaped by heritage, craft, and community. Layali Ramadan brings together live conservation demonstrations, hands-on workshops, poetry nights, and musical performances that echo the atmosphere of traditional majlis gatherings. From misbah-making and lantern crafts to board games and Arabic string performances, the programme balances education with celebration. Designed for families and late-night visitors alike, it offers a cultural calendar rooted in memory, creativity, and shared ritual throughout the holy month.
For more information @alainmuseum
Fertile Dreams | Group Show
Tabari Artspace
Bringing together artists from the MENA region and its diaspora, Fertile Dreams explores fertility as a generative force tied to land, memory, and transformation. Moving between drawing, fresco, natural pigments, and tactile materials, the works position earth as both substance and metaphor. Influenced by Surrealism and regional spiritual traditions, the artists engage automatism and repetition to access symbolic and unconscious terrains. Motifs of roots, harvest, and organic growth trace cycles of regeneration, connecting body and soil in a shared language of sustenance and return. On view until April.
10.00 am - 6.00 pm, Monday - Friday
Reflections: Modern and Contemporary Art from the Villain Collection | Group Show
Bassam Freiha Art Foundation
Drawn from the Villain Collection, this exhibition traces the evolution of modern and contemporary Arab art from early modernism to the present. Bringing together pioneering figures and later experimental voices including Saudi artist Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, Emirati artist Hassan Sharif, Egyptian artist Ezzedine Hamouda, Iraqi artist Dia Azzawi, and more, the presentation bridges generations, geographies, and artistic movements. From abstraction and calligraphy to conceptual practices, the works reflect shifting ideas of identity, heritage, and belonging. Anchored in a long-standing philosophy of openness and cultural exchange, the exhibition offers a rare public encounter with a private collection shaped by decades of sustained engagement with the region’s art histories. On view until May.
10.00 am - 8.00 pm, Monday – Sunday
Chronicles from the Storm | Saher Nassar
Zawyeh Gallery
In his latest exhibition, Palestinian artist Saher Nassar confronts the emotional and moral fatigue shaped by prolonged collective trauma. Working across multiple mediums, Nassar reflects on loss, endurance, and the quiet collapse of once-stable symbols. His imagery moves between intimacy and restraint, tracing how hope can erode under pressure, yet remain tethered to survival. Rather than offering resolution, the works dwell in ambiguity, examining how conviction is reshaped in the aftermath of suffering and how resilience persists without easy epiphany. Running until 18 March.
10.00 am – 8.00 pm, Monday – Sunday
Enrapture | Darvish Fakhr
Leila Heller Gallery
In this solo exhibition, Iranian American artist Darvish Fakhr presents a body of work shaped by painting and performative gesture, exploring love as a spiritual and unifying force. Suspended between Western and Eastern visual traditions, the works seek a state of heightened awareness beyond social constructs and expectation. Rich surfaces and symbolic compositions position art as a conduit toward clarity and inner alignment. Rather than responding to external noise, the exhibition turns inward, tracing longing as a universal language that bridges cultural boundaries and points toward a shared source.