Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial: Explore new art installations this Ramadan

This Ramadan, discover the second phase of the Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial, an uplifting celebration of art and culture transforming the emirate into an open-air gallery. Running until 30 April, 2025, the Biennial has unveiled a series of new site-responsive installations, as part of a wider programme featuring works by more than 70 artists from the UAE, the region and the world.

During the Holy Month of Ramadan, the Biennial presents a unique opportunity for reflection and artistic exploration, for visitors from all backgrounds. Embrace the spirit of the season with pre- or post-Iftar journeys through the Corniche, public parks, the historical Hili Archaeological Site, the serene Al Ain Oasis, the vibrant Cultural Foundation, and the bustling Carpet Souq. Explore installations by local and international artists that reflect on community, environment, and cultural heritage along the routes outlined on the Public Art Abu Dhabi website.

Artworks to Explore This Ramadan: 

• Migration Granary (2024), by Anga Art Collective: Migration Granary (2024) is an architectural complex symbolising the resilience and hardship of historical and contemporary pressures of migration. Constructed from local materials, the granary in Hili Archaeological Park, Al Ain, offers an intimate space for reflection on migration. The work critiques alienating modern infrastructures in proposing an environment that encourages empathy for displaced people and ecology. The contemplative archival space relating to migration’s challenges connects with Al Ain’s historical significance as a site of human settlement and movement. Anga Art Collective explores the cultural and geographic urgencies of Assam.

• Urban Negotiation (2024), by Arquitectura Expandida: For Urban Negotiation (2024), several of its members – Ana María López Ortego, Harold Guyaux, and Viviana Parada Camargo – participated in a nine-week residency from 10 January–12 March 2025, transforming an existing shop in downtown Abu Dhabi into their studio. Together they crafted a wooden ping pong table, which travelled through neighbourhoods across Abu Dhabi, sparking spontaneous encounters with the communities. The shop was open from 8pm to 2am until March 12 where the public could interact with the ping pong table, serving as a “communication device.” These in-situ interventions imbue the project with a performative aspect, generating new urban scenographies and narratives that respond directly to the community’s needs. Arquitectura Expandida is an activist collective based in Bogotá focused on urban peripheries, community organisation, and equitable public space management.

Urban Majlis, Arquitectura Expandida, 2025. From ‘Urban Negotiation’, 2017 – ongoing. Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial 2024-2025. Image(s) courtesy of the artists

• Playful Traditions (2024), by Ayesha Hadhir: Playful Traditions (2024), a public art park, combines cultural heritage with playful learning, creating an engaging space for children. The park features three traditional elements in the UAE: a dhow (sailing vessel) transformed into an interactive playground, a water fountain for playing and where children can learn about local fish such as the hamour, and a gargour (traditional fishing trap) whose dome is reimagined as an area to spark creativity. Ayesha Hadhir is a visual artist specialising in immersive installations that incorporate textiles, human-made and natural materials, and the landscapes of the UAE.

• Meet at Ayesha Hadir’s Playful Traditions at the Cultural Foundation on 21, 22 and 23 March from 8:00-8:45pm for a special Storytelling for Children Children (4 to 9 years old) will have the opportunity to experience an engaging public art park which combines cultural heritage with playful learning. The event includes lively readings and imaginative play, fostering a love for books and boosting language skills in a playful, welcoming environment.

• Deep Spaces (2024) by Lúcia Koch: Deep Spaces (2024) conceived for Abu Dhabi’s urban environment consists of a series of interventions wherein those photographs are inserted into existing advertising panels rented for the Biennial’s duration in densely populated areas in the city centre, including Hamdan Street and Electra Street. In advertising no apparent product or brand, the nature of these images or reason for them is questioned. In her large-scale photographs of the empty interiors of cardboard boxes, the artist reimagines these mundane containers as architectural spaces that challenge perception. Lúcia Koch is an interdisciplinary artist working across photography, video, architectural interventions, and large-scale installations. She utilises materials that block, filter, or redirect light, transforming them into altered visual experiences.

• Crown by Rand Abdul Jabbar: Situated parallel to Abu Dhabi’s Corniche Road near Etihad Square, a formative site in the artist’s childhood that is home to iconic sculptures such as the dalla (coffee pot) and medkhan (incense burner), Crown is an ode to ‘making home’ in Abu Dhabi, creating a space where contemporary representations of identity are linked to notions of collective learning and growth. Rand Abdul Jabbar draws upon historical vestiges and ephemera to reconstruct records, events, and experiences. She creates anchors that facilitate the retelling of the past, transforming it into a space for reclaiming agency and affirming identity. 

• Let’s Not Wait to Fill Our Cups with Time (2024) by Nnenna Okore: Let’s Not Wait to Fill Our Cups with Time (2024) reflects on Abu Dhabi’s unprecedented development over the past fifty years, exploring how time and space efficiency has transformed the arid desert into a vibrant metropolis. Hundreds of multicolour, circular hessian elements are integrated into a mesh system enveloping the façade of the heritage watch tower in Heritage Park, signalling that progress is possible when time is used wisely while highlighting sociocultural diversity. Okore encourages conversations on eco-efficient design in urban spaces, while acknowledging capitalist approaches that often shape modern concrete environments. Nnenna Okore is a contemporary artist whose practice intersects visual art, ecological research, and sustainable material use.

• Other Maps and Guides?(2024)?by Sophia Balagamwala: Sophia Balagamwala merges real and imagined events relating to nationhood, history, and mapping, drawing on archives, stories, myths, and the behaviours of flora and fauna. In Abu Dhabi, known for its rapid transformation and cultural diversity,?Other Maps and Guides?(2024) presents four publications with images of charcoal drawings, linocut prints, and digital illustrations reflecting on the migration of people, plants, birds, and fish that shape our lives. Sophia Balagamwala is an artist and curator who explores the interplay between historical events, memories, and fiction.

• • Pick up a copy of Other Maps and Guides and set off on a reflective journey around Abu Dhabi, interspersed with the personal memories of Sophia Balagamwala. The collection of booklets is available free of charge at Biennial information centres throughout Abu Dhabi.

• Nest?(2024) by Tarik Kiswanson: In?Nest?(2024), his first public artwork, a white, cocoon-shaped sculpture hovers weightlessly on a building façade in Abu Dhabi’s city centre. The work takes up the artist’s interest in levitation as both psychological metaphor and physical phenomenon. Its oblong form, a leitmotif in Kiswanson’s practice, recalls transformative states in nature (egg, chrysalis, seed) and alludes to refuge and becoming, embodying a nascent state of possibility.?Nest?underscores the need for reconstruction and renewal amid the ruptures of history, while echoing the city’s ever-changing nature. Tarik Kiswanson’s practice delves into rootlessness, metamorphosis, and memory. The artist often explores the adaptation one has to undertake after displacement and the ramifications of war.

• Al Mahatta by Atelier Aziz Al Qatami: As part of the long-term refurbishment of the Abu Dhabi Bus Terminal, their project Al Mahatta will transform the mezzanine’s former wedding hall into a dynamic space for talks, exhibitions, dining, and gathering. Preserving the modernist aesthetic, the intervention retains much of the original floor plan while clustering spaces for functionality and using light to highlight existing forms. During the Biennial, an interim site-specific sound installation in the atrium will evoke the atmosphere of twentieth-century public spaces, offering a preview ahead of the full renovation. Atelier Aziz Alqatami, a Kuwait City-based architecture office led by Aziz Al Qatami and Khalid Al Gharaballi, addresses Gulf architectural challenges using local materials and forms.

• • Check our events calendar for talks and events in the Al Mahatta space which will soon be transformed. In the meantime, you can enjoy other installations throughout the Abu Dhabi Bus Terminal by Henrique Oliveira, Zeinab Alhashemi, Daniel Buren and Eko Nugroho.

• Dirwaza Lab Talks: Dirwaza Curatorial Lab will present a series of intimate conversational talks between participating artists, local experts, and curators, followed by a suhoor and a performance by Bait Al Oud at the Carpet Souq. On March 21 at 9pm, Hessa Al Nuaimi will moderate a panel session featuring artist Wael Al Awar, academic Meitha Al Mazrooei and architect and academic Oorvi Sharma.

Please see a summary of the artists and their works on display across different locations to explore this March. For more information, please visit the Public Art Abu Dhabi website at paad.ae.