Dubai’s arts district, Alserkal Avenue, has announced a week-long programme of exhibitions and public discussions in April.
Alserkal Art Week will run from April 13 to 20 under the theme A Wild Stitch. The programme “gathers voices challenging the single grand narrative, carefully threading space for multiplicity, hybridity and alternative perspectives that refuse to be neatly stitched into place”.
Among the highlights is Vanishing Points, a mixed-media exhibition inspired by South Asian cityscapes, at Concrete. The show will include photography, video, painting, and a site-specific installation. Works by Emirati artist Nujoom Al Ghanem and Indian artist Shilpa Gupta will be displayed throughout Alserkal Avenue. Curated by writer Fatos Ustek, Al Ghanem’s photography explores the connection between identity and the surrounding physical landscape, while Gupta’s sculptures take inspiration from the desert and the sea.
A diverse selection of regional and international galleries will present exhibitions centred on themes of displacement, resilience, and identity. I Am Soil. My Tears Are Water, a solo exhibition by Cuban artist Magdalena Campos-Pons at Efie Gallery, is a reflection on ancestral memory shaped by colonial histories across Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. Meanwhile, Iraqi-Palestinian artist Sama Alshaibi will present a photographic series capturing Baghdad’s shifting landscapes at Ayyam Gallery.
Leila Heller Gallery is staging Iranian artist Reza Derakshani’s first solo exhibition in five years. I Paint Your Grace, I Paint Your Pain, I Paint Your Love is a meditation on memory and personal transformation. The programme also includes Majlis Talks, a series of public discussions in which participants will debate “unrealistic questions and impossible positions” within the UAE’s arts scene.
Alserkal Avenue will also host the Hong Kong Film Festival, from Saturday until March 28 at Cinema Akil. Presented by the Asian Film Awards Academy, the festival screens a selection of films spanning romantic fantasy, classic cinema and action genres. This year’s programme features newly released titles alongside timeless classics of Hong Kong cinema.
Among the films showing is An Abandoned Team, starring Lawrence Cheng, Amy Lo and Jay Fung, and Montages of a Modern Motherhood, starring Hedwig Tam, Patra Au and Chun Yip Lo. In the classics slot is 1993's The Bride with White Hair, a beloved film in the wuxia (adventures of martial artists) genre, the film follows a young man who is set to succeed to his clan’s throne, as he battles the powers of evil while falling in love with a female warrior.
