This month in Dubai, a series of thought-provoking exhibitions explore themes of memory, identity, borders, and the complexities of modern life through diverse mediums. Dilyara Kaipova, Hoda Tawakol, Sola Olulode, Shilpa Gupta, and Nada Baraka & Esraa Elfeky each offer powerful narratives in film, painting, sculpture, and sound. The artists blend personal history with collective memory, examining how we engage with the world and our place within it. From the fusion of traditional textiles with contemporary global issues to introspective works that question identity and belonging, these exhibitions offer unique insights into the human experience.
Hoda Tawakol: My Mothers, The Siren, the Vessel, the Womb
Gallery Isabelle – 04 February – 28 March 2025
Gallery Isabelle presents their third solo exhibition with Hoda Tawakol, an artist of Egyptian descent. Titled My Mothers, The Siren, the Vessel, the Womb, the exhibition centres on a three-channel video composed of stitched Super-8 film fragments (1960s–1980s), exploring the intertwined stories of three maternal figures in the artist’s life: her mother Honey, grandmother Toutou, and childhood caretaker Hosneia. Each channel offers a distinct yet interconnected narrative, revealing themes of memory, identity, and belonging.
Complementing the video is Fragments of Return (2024–25), a series of photomontages combining black-and-white family portraits with vibrant spray-painted surfaces and tattoo-like ink markings. These interventions transform archival images, blurring the line between tribute and defacement, reflecting complex maternal relationships.
The exhibition also features Tawakol’s Lure (2024), soft textile forms evoking fertility and motherhood, alongside Three Nude (2025), sculptures resembling miniature bodies crafted from nylon, rice, and resin. Surrounding the space, Hair (2011–14) and Warrior (2010) use synthetic hair to evoke ghostly presences, symbolising strength and control.
Through film, photography, and sculpture, Tawakol’s work reclaims the female body as a site of creation, resistance, and transformation, celebrating its complexity and resilience.
Sola Olulode: I’ve Got to Know You Now We May Never Meet Again
Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai – Tuesday, 4 February 2025 – 9 April 2025
Lawrie Shabibi presents I’ve Got to Know You Now We May Never Meet Again, the Dubai debut of London-based Nigerian-British artist Sola Olulode. This exhibition explores the intersection of myth, memory, and water, drawing on Olulode’s personal experiences and Yoruba mythology.
Inspired by her travels to the Caribbean, Mallorca, and Brescia, Olulode paints dreamlike scenes of herself, lovers, and friends immersed in the ocean. Her vibrant palette—deep blues blending with sunset oranges and pinks—creates a space where mythology and lived experience intertwine. Central to her work is Yemọja, the Yoruba sea goddess, alongside the myth of sirens, reimagined as contemporary women embracing the freedom of water.
Olulode’s practice incorporates Nigerian textile traditions, using wax, batik, oil bar, and impasto to capture the movement of waves and the fluidity of memory. Her works are luminous and dynamic, inviting viewers into a realm of liberation and reverie. Through this series, she reflects on themes of femininity, renewal, and ancestral ties to water, underscoring the ocean’s role as both a life source and a portal to deeper connections.
Shilpa Gupta: Lines of Flight
Ishara Art Foundation – 18 January – 31 May 2025
Curated by Sabih Ahmed, Lines of Flight marks Shilpa Gupta’s first solo exhibition in West Asia, showcasing works from 2006 to the present. Featuring sculptures, drawings, prints, videos, and a new sound installation, the exhibition highlights Gupta’s exploration of mobility, control, and resilience.
For over two decades, Gupta has critically examined how identities are shaped by state and societal forces. Her work interrogates borders—physical and symbolic—through language, objects, and daily life. By focusing on moments of unrest, she invites viewers to imagine new forms of resistance.
Lines, a recurring motif in Gupta’s practice, symbolise power and division—whether in national borders, ancestry, or social structures. Through subversion, her work challenges these imposed limits. Notable pieces include There is No Border Here, a poetic reflection on partition, and Still They Know Not What I Dream, a kinetic installation disrupting conventional communication.
The exhibition culminates in Listening Air, where suspended microphones recite poetry of protest and hope. Engaging with geopolitical tensions, Gupta’s work transcends constraints, offering a vision of shared humanity.
Nada Baraka & Esraa Elfeky: Across a Velvet Horizon
Tabari Artspace – 1 February – 15 March 2025
Tabari Artspace presents Across a Velvet Horizon, a collaborative exhibition by Egyptian artists Nada Baraka and Esraa Elfeky. The show explores the human impulse to impose coherence on the unknown, engaging with history as an open-ended narrative rather than a fixed record. Visitors enter an unfamiliar archive, piecing together fragments of memory and meaning.
Baraka’s paintings serve as portals into surreal, fractured landscapes, inspired by her late grandfather Ahmed Ali Kamal’s archive. Her works, such as The Edge of Saudade and The Colour of Why, layer vivid hues over faintly discernible texts, evoking nostalgia and loss. A wooden structure within the gallery acts as both sculpture and metaphor, inviting viewers to navigate these visual narratives.
Elfeky’s sculptures, inspired by a once-submerged desert site in Cairo, resemble unearthed fossils or organic remnants. Her large-scale work, The Blue Wadi Resurrection, sprawls across the gallery floor, while suspended pieces hover in liminal space, caught between past and present.
Rather than providing answers, Across a Velvet Horizon embraces uncertainty, asking: How do we reconstruct history from fragments? What stories remain untold? And how do we engage with the echoes of what is lost?
Dilyara Kaipova: Silk and Velvet VS Warning Safety Signs
Andakulova Gallery – 8 February – 8 April 2025
Andakulova Gallery showcases Silk and Velvet VS Warning Safety Signs, an exhibition by Uzbek conceptual artist Dilyara Kaipova. Known for blending traditional Uzbek textile techniques with contemporary global themes, Kaipova’s work explores the intersection of tradition, modernity, and global security concerns through the medium of fabric. Her approach transforms ancient textile forms—like silk and velvet ikat robes—into powerful commentaries on identity, globalisation, and the fragile balance between beauty and danger.
At the heart of the exhibition is Kaipova’s striking juxtaposition of traditional textiles with alarming symbols of global threat, such as the nuclear trefoil. These symbols, embroidered in bold colours onto luxurious fabrics, highlight the tension between cultural heritage and modern anxieties. Collaborating with artisans from Uzbekistan’s renowned Margilan textile center, Kaipova pushes the boundaries of textile art, combining craftsmanship with cutting-edge design technologies.
This exhibition invites viewers to reflect on the evolving role of Central Asian heritage in a rapidly changing world. Through textile assemblages, patchwork, and conceptual garments, Kaipova’s work connects East and West, tradition and modernity, offering a powerful perspective on the future of art, culture, and identity.
