As Dubai’s cultural season gathers momentum, all focus shifts to Alserkal Avenue. This month, the city’s leading contemporary arts district launches more than 15 new exhibitions across its galleries and creative spaces, bringing together photography, installation, painting and experimental practices from a wide range of local, regional and international voices.
Here’s what you can see at Alserkal Avenue.
Sojourner: The Difference is the Same at Efie Gallery
Kenyan artist Maggie Otieno presents Sojourner: The Difference is the Same, a solo exhibition of new sculptural works shaped by material memory and movement. Working with 150-year-old railway sleepers, canoes and other distressed materials, Otieno transforms remnants of East Africa’s colonial and environmental histories into evocative, new forms that reflect on displacement, survival and the traces people leave behind. The exhibition runs until November 13, 2026.
What We Carry Becomes the Terrain at Aisha Alabbar Gallery
At Aisha Alabbar Gallery, UAE-based French artist Bénédicte Gimonnet explores memory, place, identity, and cultural inheritances in What We Carry Becomes the Terrain. Bringing together paintings, drawings and textile works, the solo show explores the connections between Peru, France and the UAE. Interwoven with traditional Emirati embroidery, the talli, the work traces the bonds shared between places while preserving their differences. The exhibition is open until November 7, 2026.
The Field of Dreams at Zawyeh Gallery
At Zawyeh Gallery, artist Bashar Khalaf presents his first solo exhibition in the UAE, titled The Field of Dreams, examining the uneasy symbolism of steel in public places. Using oil paintings, charcoal works and acrylic compositions across multiple series of artworks, including Junk Garden, Protective Shield, Alhisbeh Fire and WeRamallah, he reimagines bulldozers, vehicles, surveillance cameras and damaged urban structures as symbols of power, resistance and loss. Open until November 8, 2026, the exhibition reflects on memory, fragility, and the darkness of the present.
The Butterfly’s Burden at Lawrie Shabii
At Lawrie Shabibi, London-based artist Nada Elkalaawy presents The Butterfly’s Burden, a poignant solo exhibition inspired by the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish. Through layered paintings built through accumulation and erasure, Elkalaawy reflects on memory, grief, regeneration and time, using recurring motifs of flowers, butterflies, domestic vessels, family photographs and ghostly figures. The exhibition is on view until 7 November 2026.
Taking Form at The Third Line
At The Third Line, Rana Begum’s Taking Form brings together a new body of work across textile, linen, wood and paper, extending the artist’s longstanding exploration of light, colour and geometric abstraction. Monumental wool tapestries form the centrepiece, their woven triangular patterns shifting as visitors move through the space. Marking Begum’s 5th solo exhibition with the gallery, it is on view until November 10, 2026.
Between a Fold and a Memory at Leila Heller Gallery
At Leila Heller Gallery, Dr Karima Al Shomely’s Between a Fold and a Memory pays tribute to Emirati women and the cultural knowledge carried through generations. Working across photography, sculpture, textiles and video, she reimagines traditional clothing, fabrics and objects of adornment as vessels for storytelling. The exhibition runs for 2 months, ending on November 30, 2026.
