5 Standout Artists at the Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial
Abu Dhabi is luring curators, collectors and the curious to experience its cultural offerings.
Desert Readings by Lateefa Saeed. Photograph by Ismail Noor
The evolution of Abu Dhabi may have begun with oil but its continuing with art. With nine institutions soon to call the Saadiyat Island Cultural District home and the successful launch of the emirate’s first Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial, Abu Dhabi is luring curators, collectors and the curious to experience its cultural offerings.
A list architects have also left their mark on the skyline including Zaha Hadid, Foster + Partners, Sir David Adjaye, Mecanoo and Frank Gehry. The Saadiyat Island Cultural District is currently home to Berklee Abu Dhabi, Abrahamic Family House, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Manarat Al Saadiyat and Teamlab Phenomena and will soon be welcoming Zayed National Museum, Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
In November 2024, Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial debuted, showcasing public art throughout the city and in the neighbouring oasis town of Al Ain. Welcoming more than 70 artists including creators from the Middle East, Europe, Asia and South America, eight routes included popular areas where locals gather including the National Theatre, Al Ain oasis and the Abu Dhabi Corniche, an eight kilometre area of beach, pathways for walking, running and cycling and parks, which also hosted biennial concerts and events.
Focused on the theme “public matter”, this biennial celebrated the connection between community and art, highlighted themes of migration, change and environment as well as showcasing many women artists of the region. Here are five women who created works reflecting these themes and encouraged commentary on interactions with the evolving world around us.
Photo by Ismail Noor
Based in Karachi, Pakistan, this multi-disciplinary artist and curator combines printing and illustration to reflect on home, people and the natural world. Balagamwala has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto and a master’s degree from Cornell University, also drawing inspiration from history and colonialism as she worked at the Citizens Archive of Pakistan and is currently the curator of Kurachee.pk reading room at Karachi’s AAN Art Space & Museum. Her contribution to the biennial, Other Maps and Guides, are four handsewn books, each with charcoal illustrations, short phrases, linocut prints, poems and digital drawings, inspired by Abu Dhabi’s people, flora and fauna. Each book examines how Abu Dhabi lives, eat and plays within an everchanging environment and asks viewers how they are responding to these changes.
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Photo by Lance Gerber
A native of Abu Dhabi, Al Qubaisi is a well-known jewellery designer, using metal and natural materials while choosing steel and stainless steel for her sculptures. She has exhibited in London, Milan, Doha, Helsinki, Cairo and Brussels, and was a winner of the British Council’s Young Creative Entrepreneur Awards and the Emirates Woman of the Year Awards. Al Qubaisi’s work involves Arab motifs and traditions, such as swirls of Arabic letters and the love for horses, evoking the sensual curves found in the desert sands or in ocean waves. Her creation for the biennial, My courtyard, is a series of organic shaped steel pods, lined with grass and plants. These structures were placed near the city’s busiest shopping mall as a place for porters and locals to rest and relax, offering more than seating, but also close to nature. The structures invite anyone to take a moment from a busy day to reconnect and reflect on the city.
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Photo by Ismail Noor
A graduate of Dubai’s Zayed University, Saeed’s work has been exhibited in Saudia Arabia and Kazakhstan as well as being included in the Louvre Abu Dhabi exhibition Art Here in 2021 as a finalist of the Richard Mille Art Prize. This Emirati artist prefers mixed media for installations while for her public art chooses sculpture and natural materials. Witnessing the rapid evolution of her home in Dubai has influenced Saeed’s work as she continues to examine relationship between land, identity and materials as well as being focused on sustainability and environment. Her contribution to the biennial, Desert Readings is constructed from green cement, a sustainable product made with sea water, sand sourced from each of the seven emirates and producing less carbon emissions. Each layer within the swirling sculpture evokes the movement of the sun from sunrise to sunset, emulating the constant change and those things that remain. Located in Al Ain, the large sculpture is located beside the UNESCO World Heritage site of Al Jahili Fort, a commentary on the connection between the past and present.
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With a master’s in Fine and Media Arts from Halifax’s Nova Scotia School of Art and Design, this Karachi-based visual artist is inspired by the urban landscape and the connection between people and city environments. Collaboration with craftsmen, artisans and tech experts were key to her installations at the Karachi Bienalle 17, Abu Dhabi Art Fair 2018 and Pioneer Cement Residency curated by Canvas Gallery 2018, while her recent works have also commented on safety and security, like the use of sandbags, watchtowers and barricades. Noting the fragile environment and how humans are being affected by climate change, Nusrat’s installation for the biennial was based on her 2023 exhibition in the Sea Art Festival – Busan Biennale in South Korea. Seeing the effects of many extreme weather events, Floating Fragments is on display in Abu Dhabi’s Corniche Lake at Lake Park, with terracotta roof tiles appearing as a roof submerged in the water, a reminder of the fragile ecosystem so much of the world is experiencing, yet at the same time, providing a home (and play area) for the birds inhabiting Lake Park.
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Photo by Lance Gerber
This Abu Dhabi artist mixes painting, photography, sculpture, drawing and printmaking as well as tapping into mixed media. She has an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and is currently an assistant professor of Visual Arta at Zayed University in Dubai. Al Dhaheri had solo exhibitions at Green Art Gallery in Dubai and T+H Gallery in Boston as well as been part of group exhibitions at London’s Cromwell Palace, Ghent’s Tatjana Pieters, Abu Dhabi’s Manarat Al Saadiyat and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Influences of adaptation, time and socioeconomic changes in the emirates led to her biennial exhibit, D-constructing Collective Exhaustion, created within a space at Abu Dhabi’s National Theatre. Made of light, rope, wood, the multi-level installation paired with sound by Dario Felli and Isa Najem creates a soundscape and visual exhibit to help calm and reclaim balance between mind and body. As viewers witness the pattern and colour of lights and hear the sounds, there’s a calming effect to unburden oneself of daily stresses.
