Welcome to The Culture Edit, your monthly guide to the most captivating art and cultural exhibitions across the Middle East. In a region teeming with creative energy and visionary talent, it can be overwhelming to keep track of what’s worth your time. That’s where we come in. Each month, we sift through the noise to bring you a curated selection of exhibitions that spark conversation, provoke thought, and celebrate the region’s dynamic cultural pulse.
From gallery openings and immersive installations to regional festivals and museum must-sees.
Discover the most compelling cultural happenings of the month to bookmark below.
This is The Culture Edit from YUNG.
Summer Collective: Wavering Hope
Ayyam Gallery, B11, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai | Until September 5th, 2025
Marking a turning point in Syria’s contemporary history, Wavering Hope brings together works by twelve Syrian artists who have long used art to endure, resist, and remember. From figuration to abstraction, sculpture to mixed media, the show reflects on two decades of conflict, exile, and resilience, culminating in the fragile peace of post-Assad Damascus. Featuring powerful pieces by Safwan Dahoul, Khaled Takreti, Kais Salman, Tammam Azzam, and more, the exhibition captures the emotional and political terrain of a nation rebuilding itself. A testament to survival and the persistence of artistic voice.
Summer of Classics at Cinema Akil: 100 Years Of All-Time Favourites
Cinema Akil, Warehouse 68, Dubai | Until August 31, 2025
Summer of Classics is a cinematic thread that ties the past to the present. It opens with Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, where comedy softens hardship, and The Phantom of the Opera, whose gothic iconography still lingers in the bones. Mandabi, a Wolof‑language film, cuts through postcolonial red tape with biting poise, while Rebel Without a Cause and La Haine tremble with youth struggling for voice. Later, films like Dead Poets Society and Edward Scissorhands explore solitude, difference, and belonging. The Before trilogy and Memento close the season in moments of quiet reckoning; the season is a meditation on memory, loss, and connection.
Garden of Murmurs
Carbon 12, Dubai | Until August 23, 2025
Malik Thomas Jalil Kydd weaves identity into every thread. In Garden of Murmurs, the artist fuses painting, drawing, and fibre to explore desire, memory, and the self. His life-sized figures are quietly commanding, evoking a sense of presence without spectacle. Rooted in his Iraqi heritage, Kydd lets fabric speak, folding intimacy into form. Texture becomes language. The thread becomes the narrative. These works don’t just depict the body, they hold it, question it, and soften its boundaries. Between gender, culture, and craft, Kydd stitches together a space where identity isn’t declared, it’s felt.
Summer Vibes
Opera Gallery, Dubai | Until September 1, 2025
This summer, Opera Gallery Dubai brings together a bold selection of contemporary works in Summer Vibes, a dynamic group exhibition spanning painting and sculpture. Featuring artists such as Takashi Murakami, KAWS, Shepard Fairey, Adrián Navarro, and OS GEMEOS, the show highlights a decade of creative experimentation across pop, figuration, and abstraction. Expect a vibrant interplay of colour, form, and texture that explores the visual language of our time.
Antevasin – The One Who Sits At The Border Of Two Worlds
Gallery Isabelle, Dubai | Until September 10, 2025
At Gallery Isabelle, Antevasin – The One Who Sits At The Border Of Two Worlds marks Richi Bhatia’s first solo show in Dubai. Known for her raw, research-driven practice, the India and UAE-based artist dives into the messy intersections of body, food, and memory. From fish-scale shelters that echo migrant housing to hand-bound books made with her own hair, each work bridges the personal and the political. Drawing from lived experiences including a skin condition, time spent in fish markets, Bhatia creates layered installations that challenge how we consume, touch, and remember.
Prince Faisal bin Fahd Arts Hall Exhibition Summer 2025
Prince Faisal Bin Fahd Arts Hall, Riyadh | Until September 25, 2025
Memory becomes a map in this third edition of the annual juried show, where 43 Saudi and Saudi-based artists reflect on heritage, identity, and generational change. Through painting, installation, and personal archive, the exhibition explores how stories are passed down and re-imagined across time. Portraits, heirlooms, rituals, and language become touchstones in a wider conversation about belonging and becoming. Grounded in the past, but looking forward, the show holds space for both memory and possibility.
And that was The Culture Edit from YUNG.
Stay across our Arts and Culture pages to track what’s happening across the MENA region.
