For Emilie Dubois, home is a feeling carried across borders. The UAE-based Guatemalan artist channels her own experience of living away from her birthplace in Home is Not a Place, a new exhibition at the Bassam Freiha Art Foundation that examines identity, nostalgia and the process of building a life elsewhere.
On display at the foundation’s Annex Gallery until March 26, the exhibition invites visitors to consider the concept of home through Dubois's eyes through an immersive installation and a series of colourful mixed-media works.
“I live away from the country where I was born, but still I find the UAE to be my home,” she tells The National. “I wanted to represent that.”
The exhibition’s visual language is unapologetically bright. Bold yellows, reds and blues dominate the space, transforming the gallery into a world that feels both joyful and intimate. Dubois’s colour choices approach the theme with optimism. “You can take two routes with this kind of home-away-from-home exhibition,” she explains. “I wanted to make it in a hopeful way, and I wanted that joy to be transmitted to the viewer.”
At the heart of the exhibition is an interactive living room installation that blurs the boundary between artwork and environment. Visitors are encouraged to step inside, sit on the furniture, handle objects and leave traces of their presence. Painted with broad, expressive brushstrokes, the space evolves as it is used. Footsteps, movement and interaction gradually alter the work, making the audience active participants rather than observers.
Dubois embraces this transformation. “This is a fleeting space. Everything that is physical is temporary, but what you carry within you is what matters,” she says.
That balance between permanence and impermanence is central to the show’s emotional core. While the living room may change over time, it reflects the internal sense of continuity people maintain through memory, culture and personal history.
Curator and director of exhibitions Michaela Watrelot says the theme holds particular relevance in Abu Dhabi. “Most residents of the UAE know what it feels like to be away from home, or to question where home actually is,” she notes, adding that the foundation aims to present art that resonates directly with the community while bringing global voices to Saadiyat Cultural District.
Although the exhibition speaks to a global audience, Dubois’s Guatemalan heritage remains central to the work. Asked how much of her home country appears in the exhibition, she answers simply: “All of it.”
From the vivid palette to the emotional undercurrents, her cultural identity informs every stage of the process. She speaks of listening to music from her homeland while creating the pieces, and of drawing on memories of family and cultural traditions.
“A big part of who I am is because of my country,” she says. “I represent my country and my culture very proudly.”
That fusion of influences gives Home is Not a Place its distinctive voice. It is both deeply personal and widely relatable, rooted in one artist’s story while echoing the experiences of countless others navigating life between cultures.
In a city shaped by global movement, Dubois creates a space for reflection, inviting visitors to step inside, leave their mark and perhaps recognise their own journeys in the process. The result is an exhibition that feels less like a static display and more like an evolving conversation about identity, memory and the emotional landscapes people carry with them wherever they go.
