Alserkal Avenue is making history this April with Déjà Vu, the UAE’s first collaborative multi-gallery exhibition in a 14-day selling show bringing together 20 of the country’s leading contemporary art galleries under one roof at Concrete, the Avenue’s brutalist exhibition space in Al Quoz.

Opening on 25 April and running until 8 May 2026, the exhibition presents works by more than 50 artists across a premise that is as intellectually ambitious as it is timely. Conceptualised by Alserkal and curated by Artistic Director Kevin Jones, Nada Raza of the Alserkal Arts Foundation, and Curator Zaina Zaarour, Déjà Vu takes its title from a 2016 neon work by Raed Yassin, and unfolds across three curatorial threads: the uncanny, historical absurdity, and linguistic slippage.

The uncanny strand probes the surreal gap between what is real and what is perceived. Historical absurdity draws on Marx’s observation that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, turning a lens on how communities in this region hold and misremember lived experience of geopolitical upheaval. Linguistic slippage, the third thread, examines the unreliability of language itself when meaning is contested and communication becomes unstable.

Among the artists featured are Samira Abbassy, Larissa Sansour, Slavs and Tartars, Seher Shah, and Samuel Fosso, alongside works from galleries including The Third Line, Green Art Gallery, Carbon12, Grey Noise, and Leila Heller Dubai.

A commercial initiative born out of solidarity, the show is designed to support galleries impacted by current events, Déjà Vu is as much a statement about the resilience of the UAE’s art ecosystem as it is an exhibition. Concrete, Alserkal Avenue. 25 April – 8 May 2026.