Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial turns the capital into an open-air gallery
- 26 Mar 2025
Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer
The second phase of the Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial which has transformed Abu Dhabi emirate into an open-air gallery, runs till April 30. 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. Set up at sites like the Corniche, public parks, the historical Hili Archaeological Site, the serene Al Ain Oasis, the vibrant Cultural Foundation, and the bustling Carpet Souq, the installations by local and international artists reflect on community, environment, and cultural heritage.
Artworks include Migration Granary (2024), by Anga Art Collective, which 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 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, India.
Urban Negotiation (2024), by Arquitectura Expandida, saw several of its members – Ana María López Ortego, Harold Guyaux, and Viviana Parada Camargo – participating in a nine-week residency (Jan. 10 – Mar. 12), 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 encounters and dialogues with communities. The shop, which was open from 8pm to 2am till March 12, was a place where the public could interact with the ping pong table, serving as a “communication device”. Arquitectura Expandida is an activist collective based in Bogotá focused on urban peripheries, community organisation, and equitable public space management.
Playful Traditions (2024) by Ayesha Hadhir is a public art park that combines cultural heritage with playful learning, creating an engaging space for children. The park features three traditional elements of the UAE: a dhow (sailing vessel) transformed into an interactive playground; a water fountain for playing 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.
Deep Spaces (2024) by Lúcia Koch, conceived for Abu Dhabi’s urban environment, consists of a series of interventions where 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. Apparently advertising no product or brand, the nature of the images or their raison d’etre, is ripe for questioning. Lúcia Koch is an interdisciplinary artist working across photography, video, architectural interventions, and large-scale installations.
Crown by Rand Abdul Jabbar is 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. Let’s Not Wait to Fill Our Cups with Time (2024) by Nnenna Okore 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. Nnenna Okore is a contemporary artist whose practice intersects visual art, ecological research, and sustainable material use. In Other Maps and Guides (2024) by Sophia Balagamwala, the artist merges real and imagined events relating to nationhood, history, and mapping, drawing on archives, stories, myths, and the behaviours of flora and fauna. Other Maps and Guides presents four publications with images of charcoal drawings including linocut prints and digital illustrations reflecting on the migration of people, plants, birds, and fish that shape lives. Sophia Balagamwala is an artist and curator who explores the interplay between historical events, memories, and fiction. Nest (2024) by Tarik Kiswanson is his first public artwork, a white, cocoon-shaped sculpture that 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 also underscores the need for reconstruction and renewal amid the ruptures of history. Al Mahatta by Atelier Aziz Al Qatami is part of the long-term refurbishment of the Abu Dhabi Bus Terminal by the Atelier; their project Al Mahatta transforms the mezzanine’s former wedding hall into a space for talks, exhibitions, dining and gathering.
Preserving the modernist aesthetic, the intervention retains much of the original floor plan. During the Biennial, an interim site-specific sound installation in the atrium evokes 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.