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.
Without further ado, let’s get into The Culture Edit.
Dear Viewers
Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan | Until September 30th
In the Middle of Things, Palestinian artist Raeda Saadeh doesn’t try to fix what’s broken, she sits with it. Her performances feel stuck and stretched, like time lagging behind itself. Everything’s off-kilter: routines unravel, gestures feel too small, and watching becomes its own heavy act. The exhibition doesn’t resolve anything, and that’s the point. It’s about surviving the in-between. Equal parts haunting and hypnotic, Saadeh invites us to stay with the discomfort, eyes open, unsure, and still going on.
Wafa al-Hamad: Sites of Imagination
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar | Until 9th August
Sites of Imagination is a long-overdue spotlight on the Qatari modernist who bent perception and redefined tradition. From optical illusions to dreamlike abstraction, her works blend Arabic calligraphy, coral shapes, and spiritual geometry into vibrant portals of cultural memory. Featuring 23 works across several decades, including Henna Night and The Tower of Barzan, this first-ever solo show is a love letter to Gulf modernism and a reminder that al-Hamad’s visionary lens shaped more than just canvas, it shaped a movement.
Time Heals, Just Not Quick Enough…
Efie Gallery, Alsekal Avenue, Dubai, UAE | Until 30th July
Time heals, just not quick enough… brings together five fierce voices across generations at Efie Gallery, curated by Ose Ekore. Through film, photography, collage, and self-portraiture, the show cuts deep, grappling with memory, migration, grief, and healing. From Sumayah Fallatah’s layered family narratives to Aïda Muluneh’s surreal feminist iconography, each work unpacks what it means to carry history in your body. It’s soft, sharp, and utterly unforgettable.
No Trespassing
Ishara Art Foundation, Alsekal Avenue, Dubai, UAE | Until 30th August
No Trespassing flips the script on white cube norms, turning the Ishara Art Foundation into a playground of urban chaos and coded beauty. Curated by Priyanka Mehra, the show brings together six UAE and South Asian artists who treat the street as both canvas and collaborator. From graffiti to scrap, it’s a raw remix of space, movement, and rebellion, where institutions get tagged and boundaries blur.
Sunrise at the Vortex: Nima Nabavi
The Third Line, Warehouse 78, Alsekal Avenue, Dubai, UAE | Until 27th July
Nima Nabavi takes geometry for a spin… literally. His latest solo exhibition at The Third Line fuses technology and tradition, utilising architectural pen-plotters to create hypnotic linework that feels both cosmic and calculated. Inspired by global energy sites and his grandfather’s legacy, Nabavi’s machine-assisted drawings don’t distance the hand; they deepen it. Creating meditative, mind-bending forms that pulse with spiritual tech energy. No mere visual trip, this is a blueprint for how art evolves and endures.
Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar |Until 9th August
Borders blur, ruins speak, and ghosts linger in this genre-bending showcase at Mathaf. Your Ghosts Are Mine brings together over 40 artists from the Arab world, Africa, and Southeast Asia, threading stories of exile, memory, and movement through immersive film and video. From surreal animations to raw docu-memoirs, each section dives into deserts, thresholds, and cosmic frontiers. Premiered in Venice and now taking over Doha, it’s cinema unbound—loud, layered, and deeply rooted in lived experience.
And that was The Culture Edit.
For more on regional art and culture, visit our dedicated archives, get across our Instagram and stay tuned for the next edition of The Culture Edit from YUNG.
