Themed A Wild Stitch, the event will reaffirm its role in shaping bold conversations from the region through exhibitions, talks, public artworks and more.
The season of art is upon us — just as Art Dubai and World Art Dubai make their return next month, so does Alserkal Art Week, bringing with it a packed program that challenges singular narratives. Running from 13 to 20 April under the theme A Wild Stitch, it will once again take place at the leading cultural district and hub of the region’s art scene: Alserkal Avenue.
Responding to the present moment, and reaffirming its role in shaping bold conversations from the region, the week will showcase major exhibitions, artist talks, workshops, screenings, open studios, and public artworks that collectively and individually create space for multiplicity, hybridity, and alternative perspectives that refuse to be neatly stitched into place. Here’s what to expect at a glance.
Vanishing Points
At the heart of Alserkal Art Week, Vanishing Points debuts new works by Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi, presented for the first time at Concrete. Curated by Nada Raza, the exhibition showcases photography, video, painting, and site-specific installations by Qureshi, a leading figure from the acclaimed Lahore school of contemporary Indo-Persian miniature painting, renowned for his innovative reimagining of this classical form. The artist captures the layered cityscapes of South Asia, where Mughal and Sikh architecture merge with the post-industrial present, rejecting the fixed gaze of European perspective. By collaborating with skilled practitioners, he creates immersive, tactile experiences that reimagine the world in miniature.
Public Art Commissions
Curated by independent writer and curator Fatoş Üstek, this year’s public art commissions unfold across Alserkal Avenue under Between a Beach and Slope, inspired by Emirati artist Nujoom Alghanem’s poem of the same name. Alghanem’s photographic intervention marks the avenue’s corner façade, opening a contemplative dialogue between self and landscape. In The Yard, Indian artist Shilpa Gupta’s light-text sculpture, Still They Know Not What I Dream, gives form to silence and resistance. Each work is placed in dialogue with the city’s shifting horizon, where the ancient rhythms of desert and sea meet the bright glare of the future. The commissions will be accompanied by talks by the artists and curator, live block-printing workshops, and a film screening.
Majlis Talks
Curated by Stephanie Bailey, the Majlis Talks hosts a special edition of Crit Club, a performance project by Cem A. of Freeze magazine. Framed as a sports tournament, the talks invite participants into a site-specific arena to dialogue and debate on unrealistic questions and impossible positions—drawn from conversations within the UAE art scene.
Gallery Exhibitions
Alserkal Art Week brings together artists from South Asia, Latin America, and the MENA region, with 16 galleries presenting exhibitions that confront histories of displacement, resilience, and identity. Efie Gallery debuts with Cuban artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons’ I Am Soil. My Tears Are Water, an immersive reflection on migration, ancestral memory, and nature shaped by colonisation. Elsewhere, Zawyeh Gallery presents British-Palestinian artist Bashir Makhoul’s The Promise, where petals become symbols of displacement and renewal. Ayyam Gallery showcases Iraqi-Palestinian Sama Alshaibi’s photographs, reconstructing Baghdad’s shifting landscapes through LiDAR technology and archives. Gulf Photo Plus hosts A Memorial in Fragments, featuring Saudi artist Majd Arandas’ posthumous work on photography’s role in documenting Gaza, while Green Art Gallery presents paintings by Iranian artist Maryam Hoseini that explore the fragmentation of women’s bodies and identity.
Exploring modernist legacies, Leila Heller Gallery presents Iranian artist Reza Derakshani’s I Paint Your Grace, I Paint Your Pain, I Paint Love, his first solo in five years, meditating on memory and transformation through Persian-inspired works, while Gallery Isabelle revisits pioneering Emirati conceptual artist Hassan Sharif’s Objects series, interrogating materiality and storytelling. Other exhibitions include 1×1 Art Gallery’s showcase of Indian artist and filmmaker K.M. Madhusudhanan’s The Shape of the Sky, A Rectangle; Firetti Contemporary’s Reverie, featuring Cuban-born Reynier Llanes’ paintings that blend folklore and contemporary themes to explore poetic existence; and Aisha Alabbar Gallery’s A Radical Intimacy of Hanging Out, a group show featuring Asma Khoory, Taqwa Al Naqbi, and Sultan Al Remeithi, questioning the logic of Gulf urbanism, and Waddington Custot Gallery’s group exhibition features international artists such as Landon Metz and Marc Quinn.
Guest Projects
This week features two guest exhibitions. Leila Heller Gallery and Dastan Gallery present Maydan: A Living Agora, a group exhibition curated by Behrang Samadzadegan, exploring the Maydan as both place and symbol — a site of gathering, exchange, and negotiation across cultures. The Mine presents Resonant Turns, a solo show by Hadieh Shafie, where sculptural scrolls and cascading book forms transform language, repetition, and movement into fluid, cyclical storytelling.
Art Dubai x Alserkal Art Week
Mexican artist Héctor Zamora presents his site-specific intervention Existence-emitting Movements, complementing his performance art at Art Dubai 2025. This work arises from group actions where performers engage with terracotta objects, exploring symbolism through clay vessels. By integrating ritualistic elements, the performance invites introspective reflection on human culture, thereby challenging norms around materiality, ritual, and collective action. This performance-installation marks the start of a multi-year partnership between the two organisations, co-commissioning artists rooted in performance.
Discover: Alserkal Art Week. Alserkal Avenue, 17th Street, Al Quoz Industrial Area 1, Dubai. @alserkalavenue
