Weekly UAE museum and gallery guide: Artists reflect on walls of Gaza and waste collectors of Tunisia

Plus, an exhibition that examines whether identification documents or lived experiences shape us more

Bechir Boussandel's glass-blown works focus on Tunisia’s berbasha or individuals who survive by collecting waste. Photo: Tabari Artspace

This week’s exhibitions explore how personal and collective identities are shaped through conflict and displacement.

From glass sculptures that reflect on migration and marginalisation to haunting canvases that preserve Gaza’s memory, the featured works confront systems that seek to erase or contain. They prompt questions of how borders define lives and how individuals assert themselves against systemic forces.

Here are three exhibitions to see this week.

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Tempted by Other Suns at Tabari Artspace

In Tempted by Other Suns, Bechir Boussandel presents a series of glass-blown works that draws inspiration from Tunisia’s berbasha or individuals who survive by collecting waste.

The project was formed after the artist encountered a Senegalese man who collected plastic bottles to pay for his journey into Europe. After following him to a waste depot, Boussandel began seeing the practice as a powerful allegory of survival and ambition.

Boussandel, a French-born artist of Tunisian descent, then began creating plaster moulds from discarded plastic objects, transforming them into glass sculptures in collaboration with Tunisian artisans.

The glass pieces were also fitted with metal birds, solidifying the metaphor of migration in the artworks. The birds are rendered in still, flightless forms. As such, Boussandel’s works express the conflict between the desire for mobility and the restrictions enforced by social systems.

Until September 5; Monday to Friday, 11am to 6pm; Gate Village, Building 3, Dubai International Financial Centre

Gaza: Between Rubble and Memory at Zawyeh Gallery

Mohammed Joha's canvases emulate walls in Gaza, once filled with graffiti, portraits and slogans, but now scarred. Photo: Zawyeh Gallery

This online exhibition presents a series of mixed-media works that Mohammed Joha created in Gaza in 2006. The paintings echo the destruction and trauma experienced by Palestinians, embodying shards of the city’s emotional and physical landscapes. The artist is a Gaza-born Palestinian artist living in France.

Using acrylic and spray paint, Joha transforms canvases into symbolic walls, scarred and layered like those once filled with graffiti, martyr portraits and slogans, many now destroyed by bombings. Faded Arabic text and ghostly portraits, meanwhile, evoke the history that risks erasure under Israeli onslaught.

The abstracted forms are drawn from real demolished homes. As such, Joha’s paintings serve as a visual archive. The works are searingly relevant today, as Gaza faces continued devastation.

Until August 15; online; Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

It Starts Where It Ends at 421 Arts Campus

The artist uses marble and granite, materials tied to permanence, to reflect on identity. Photo: 421

Colombian artist Ana Escobar Saavedra’s exhibition at 421 Arts Campus explores concepts of identity through linguistic, philosophical and material investigations.

A pivoting point is the distinction between the Spanish verbs “ser” and “estar”. While both mean “to be”, they reflect different states, permanent and temporary.

This conceptual contrast is reflected in her use of marble and granite, materials tied to permanence and historical preservation, which she reshapes to reflect the body’s changing nature. The exhibition incorporates elements such as identification documents to question how identity is constructed and recorded, and whether official records or lived experience shape us more.

It Starts Where It Ends comes as part of 421’s Artistic Development Programme and the centre’s commitment to nurturing early-career artists in the UAE.

Until September 7; Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 8pm; Zayed Port, Abu Dhabi