Showcasing the works of over seventy artists from all around the world, the Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial (PAAD) invited visitors of all ages and backgrounds to experience site-specific installations displayed across the city and engage in a dynamic cultural programme. Located at iconic landmarks across Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, the Biennial explored the concept of “public” within the unique context of its urban environments, enriching Abu Dhabi’s artistic landscape with diverse and thought-provoking creations.
PAAD examined the interplay between the city’s modern development and its indigenous practices, addressing the challenge of preserving traditional values amid urban growth and economic diversification. To do so while promoting inclusivity, the Biennial invited a variety of talented artists to contribute to the conversation on cultural significance.
Explore our selection of ten artists to watch, whose works were presented in Abu Dhabi!
Afra Al Dhaheri
Afra Al Dhaheri (b. 1988) is a multidisciplinary artist, currently based in Abu Dhabi. Having obtained an MFA from the Rhode School of Design (USA) in 2017, she is also involved in academia, working as an Assistant Professor at Zayed University, apart from her artistic practice. Al Dhaheri works with various media, spanning sculpture, drawing, painting, installation, photography, and printmaking. Inspired by her experiences of growing up in Abu Dhabi, she explores themes of the passage of time, change, adaptation, and fragility.
During the Biennial, the audience can see the D-constructing Collective Exhaustion (2024) – an immersive installation made of wooden structures, tangled ropes, light, and sound. This artwork is meant to serve as a refuge from the overstimulation that has become an unavoidable part of life in the digital age. Al Dhaheri invites passers-by to slow down, reflect, and ground themselves in the present moment.
Eko Nugroho
Eko Nugroho (b. 1977) is an Indonesian artist based in Yogyakarta. Through the years of his artistic practice, he gained status as a leading figure in Indonesian art, as well as international recognition. Nugroho’s multidisciplinary practice includes drawing, painting, sculpture, and installations. His primary source of inspiration is the sociopolitical transformation following the fall of President Suharto. By blending Indonesian artistic tradition with contemporary counterculture, he addresses such themes with a dose of humour and colourful visual language. During PAAD, two of his sculptural works are on view at the Abu Dhabi Bus Terminal – Becoming Stone and Blooming (2023) and Reconstruction Dream (2023), both symbolising strength, growth, and the pursuit of dreams.
Farah Al Qasimi
Farah Al Qasimi (b. 1991) is an Emirati-Lebanese artist with a BA in Art from Yale University (2012) and an MFA in Photography from the Yale School of Art (2017). Al Qasimi works with diverse artistic media such as photography, installation, video, and performance. Through her art, she critically examines the postcolonial power dynamics, gender roles, cultural identity, and the impact of globalisation on everyday life. In Abu Dhabi, Homesickness (2024) is on view – a sculpture honouring the tradition of pearl diving vital to the Emirates’ cultural and economic landscape.
Homesickness includes five large oysters in a circular formation, each concealing speakers that emit a chorus of synthetic voices for which the artist has made a composition based on a chant sung by the wives of pearl divers (‘Tob, Tob Ya Bahar’). The placement on the Abu Dhabi Corniche holds personal and cultural significance, reflecting Al Qasimi’s experiences with local public art.
Kader Attia
Kader Attia (b. 1970) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working between Berlin, Paris, and Algiers. Growing up between Algerian and French cultural influences, Attia takes an intercultural and interdisciplinary approach to research. As such, in his practice, he explores themes of Western cultural hegemony, colonial power structures, collective trauma, and the concept of repair, with collective memory being at the centre of it all.
Beyond his artistic work, he is also the founder of La Colonie, a creative space in Paris dedicated to dialogue and cultural exchange. During the Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial, visitors can experience Urban River (2024), a stainless steel installation highlighting the imperfections shaping a city’s living memory. He explores the concepts of injury and repair, uncovering the lasting effects of colonialism and empire. The viewer is confronted with the wounds that form much of the built environment—a symptom of modernity. When projected vertically, these cracks allow a new reading of the urban grid.
Lúcia Koch
Lúcia Koch (b. 1966) is a Brazilian artist based in São Paulo, working with photography, video, architectural inventions, and large-scale installations. Her artistic practice aims to transform everyday environments into altered visual experiences by using various techniques of visual manipulation to shift the viewer’s attention from interior contents to the architectural space itself.
The search for emphasising the unexpected beauty of mundane forms is also the leading premise behind the Deep Spaces (2024) featured at the PAAD Biennial. The large-scale photographs of interiors of cardboard boxes reimagined as architectural spaces can be spotted on billboards scattered across the Abu Dhabi city centre.
Nicholas Galanin
Nicholas Galanin (b. 1979) is a native Alaskan artist of Lingít and Unangax̂ ancestry, based in Sitka. His multidisciplinary practice includes sculpture, photography, performance, textiles, and film, through which he explores the complexities of Indigenous identity, the impact of colonialism, and cultural memory. His practice, mixing traditional and contemporary art, is intrinsically connected to his culture, land, and history, celebrating the resilience of his people while looking forward to a hopeful future. In Abu Dhabi, In every language, there is Land / En cada lengua hay una Tierra (2024) reuses the US–Mexico border wall steel tubing to spell ‘LAND’ to celebrate Indigenous resilience amid imposed languages and borders.
Paweł Althamer
Paweł Althamer (b. 1967) is a Polish artist living and working in Warsaw. Althamer obtained his degree in Sculpture from the Akademia Sztuk Pięknych in Warsaw (1993); however, his artistic practice goes far beyond this traditional medium. Known for his multidisciplinary, groundbreaking projects and performances, Althamer strongly believes in community engagement and collaboration. Consequently, his projects often involve his family, friends, neighbours, and even strangers he encounters, emphasising human connection and the shared experience.
This emphasis on public engagement is reflected in his work exhibited during PAAD. Tentarium (2024) invites us into a cat-shaped tent where we can draw on its walls, contributing to the artistic process and celebrating creativity across cultures. The tent therefore, changes throughout the Biennial, celebrating exchange across age, education, background, and language. While Ari (2024)—cast from branches, lumber offcuts, figurines, and carvings—is enthroned atop a coin-lined platform, staring pensively with the silent, independent contemplation the artist so admires in cats. Althamer pays tribute to the animal by highlighting parts of the sinewy musculature with a metal leaf.
Shaikha Al Ketbi
Shaikha Al Ketbi (b. 1995) is a multimedia artist living and working between Abu Dhabi and Tokyo. Working across photography, drawing, and installation, her practice explores themes of self-awareness and the blurring boundaries between fiction and reality. She is particularly drawn to isolated landscapes, capturing ephemeral moments within them and contextualising them through dream-like imagery.
To capture such moments within perceived environments to create metaphorical narratives of transformation and self-reflection, Imagine it’s foggy (2024) consists of eight surrealistic street lamps scattered across Hili Archaeological Park in Al Ain. Being inspired by Al Ketbi’s childhood memories of Al Hili, the installation is set on the intersection of imagination, childhood nostalgia, and the city’s contemporary urban development.
Wael Shawky
Wael Shawky (b. 1971) is an Egyptian multidisciplinary artist working between Alexandria and Philadelphia. Shawky’s practice spans film, performance, drawing, and sculpture, often drawing from Arabic traditions to reinterpret Middle Eastern history, culture, and religion through a contemporary lens.
Using storytelling as a central element of his practice to transform historical realities into imaginative new worlds, his latest film, Drama 1882 (2024), revisits the 1882 Urabi Revolution, shedding light on Egypt’s resistance to British colonial rule. After its premiere at the 60th Venice Biennale, the viewers in Abu Dhabi can engross themselves within the story, critiquing the traditional Western settler narrative imposed upon the colonised countries and presented to the rest of the world. With his eight-part musical, Shawky highlights the necessity to reevaluate history.
Zeinab Alhashemi
Zeinab Alhashemi (b. 1985) is a Dubai-based conceptual artist known for her site-specific installations and public art, creating works that merge natural and artificial elements to encourage viewers to reflect on their relationship with their surroundings. Drawing inspiration from Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, Alhashemi frequently explores themes of adaptation to environmental change. Her practice often examines the delicate balance between nature and human intervention.
Witnessing the UAE’s rapid industrial transformation, Equilibrium (2024) is a pair of identical concrete sculptures covered in living grass, symbolising the ongoing tension between human development and the natural world. Shown as part of PAAD, the work is a homage to brutalist architecture, mirroring the imposing forms of urban growth while taking inspiration from the iconic Abu Dhabi Bus Terminal.
More about the Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial: https://paad.ae
