Alserkal Art Week 2025 Opens with ‘A Wild Stitch’ – Showcasing Bold New Voices in Contemporary Art
Alserkal Art Week returns from 13–20 April with the theme 'A Wild Stitch', featuring new exhibitions, public art, and performances that explore multiplicity, hybridity, and belonging across the region’s dynamic contemporary art scene.
Alserkal Avenue, the cultural heartbeat of Dubai, is set to open its doors to Alserkal Art Week from 13 to 20 April under the evocative theme A Wild Stitch. This spring edition reaffirms the Avenue’s position as a regional catalyst for boundary-pushing creativity and conversation, unravelling singular narratives in favour of complexity, hybridity, and multiplicity.
Anchored by major exhibitions, public commissions, artist talks, performances, and gallery showcases, A Wild Stitch promises a dynamic interplay between disciplines, geographies, and perspectives—stitched together yet unruly in their collective expression.
Imran Qureshi’s 'Vanishing Points' at Concrete
At the heart of the week is Vanishing Points, a landmark exhibition by Imran Qureshi, curated by Nada Raza and supported by Nature Morte. Known for his contemporary reimagining of Indo-Persian miniature painting, Qureshi employs photography, video, painting, and site-specific installation to flatten distances and collapse timelines. His work captures the layered urbanity of South Asia, from Mughal arches to post-industrial skylines, inviting viewers into an intricately miniaturised universe of coexisting pasts and presents.
New Public Art Commissions: Between a Beach and Slope
Curated by acclaimed curator and writer Fatoş Üstek, a series of public art commissions appear across the Avenue under the title Between a Beach and Slope, drawing inspiration from a poem by Emirati artist Nujoom Alghanem. Her photographic intervention adorns the Avenue’s corner façade, while Shilpa Gupta’s light sculpture, Still They Know Not What I Dream, activates The Yard with poetic resistance and silence. Together, these site-specific works engage with themes of belonging, topography, and cultural memory.
L–R: Fatoş Üstek, courtesy of X; Nujoom Alghanem, courtesy of the artist; Shilpa Gupta, courtesy of the artist.
Majlis Talks and Crit Club: Art Discourse in Action
Under the curatorial vision of Stephanie Bailey, the Majlis Talks return with Crit Club, a conceptual performance by Cem A. of @freeze_magazine. Framed as a tongue-in-cheek sports tournament, the programme invites audiences to grapple with “unrealistic questions and impossible positions” drawn from the UAE’s evolving art discourse. Expect sharp wit, critical engagement, and performative provocation.
Over 15 Gallery Exhibitions Across the Avenue
Alserkal Art Week brings together over 16 gallery exhibitions, offering a compelling cross-section of global contemporary practice:
- Efie Gallery debuts in Dubai with María Magdalena Campos-Pons’ I Am Soil. My Tears Are Water, an immersive meditation on memory and migration.
- Zawyeh Gallery presents Bashir Makhoul’s The Promise, exploring renewal through the symbolism of petals.
- Ayyam Gallery showcases Sama Alshaibi’s LiDAR-rendered visions of Baghdad’s shifting terrain.
- Green Art Gallery features Maryam Hoseini’s fragmented female figures, challenging identity constructs.
- Leila Heller Gallery hosts Reza Derakshani’s long-awaited solo, I Paint Your Grace, I Paint Your Pain, I Paint Love, a poetic exploration of Persian memory.
- Gallery Isabelle revisits conceptual pioneer Hassan Sharif’s Objects series, an inquiry into materiality and language.
Other highlights include 1x1 Art Gallery’s The Shape of the Sky, A Rectangle by Indian artist K.M. Madhusudhanan, Firetti Contemporary’s Reverie with Reynier Llanes’ folkloric dreamscapes, and Aisha Alabbar Gallery’s group show A Radical Intimacy of Hanging Out, examining Gulf urban life.
Guest Projects: Maydan and Resonant Turns
In collaboration with Dastan Gallery, Maydan: A Living Agora at Leila Heller Gallery—curated by Behrang Samadzadegan—contemplates the ‘maydan’ as a symbolic space of exchange and collective memory. Meanwhile, The Mine presents Resonant Turns, a solo by Iranian-American artist Hadieh Shafie, whose sculptural scrolls and text-based forms unravel language through ritual and repetition.
Performance Art and a New Partnership with Art Dubai
In a powerful gesture of cross-institutional collaboration, Alserkal Art Week inaugurates a multi-year partnership with Art Dubai through Existence-emitting Movements by Mexican artist Héctor Zamora. The site-specific performance-installation, blending terracotta, movement, and ritual, reflects on shared human culture and the symbolism of material. Zamora’s work will evolve across future editions, offering a living dialogue between Alserkal and the global art scene.
Workshops, Walkthroughs, Screenings and More
Beyond exhibitions, the Avenue will hum with artist-led workshops, film screenings, open studios, guided tours, and conversations throughout the week—providing rich, participatory entry points for audiences to engage directly with artists and their processes.
Championing Creativity and Cultural Dialogue
Since its founding in 2008 by cultural patron Abdelmonem Bin Eisa Alserkal, Alserkal Avenue has evolved into a thriving creative ecosystem—supporting experimental practices, amplifying regional narratives, and shaping sustainable futures in the arts.
Alserkal Art Week: A Wild Stitch is a vivid reflection of this mission—bringing together diverse artistic voices in a shared space that celebrates complexity, challenges convention, and embraces the power of multiplicity.
Explore the full programme and discover more at https://alserkal.online.
