Latif Al Ani, whose role as ‘Father of Iraqi Photography’ encompasses three decades of documentation, from the 1950s through 1970s. His work captures the belle époque of the cosmopolitan and modern Iraq during these years.

An overview of my interviews with one of these respected artists was Saleh Al Ustad, who sadly departed us in April 2018. Saleh was one of the first fine arts photographers and instructors in the UAE, actively contributing to the contemporary photography movement since the early 1980s.

Seven graduating female architecture students at the American University of Sharjah are challenging the timeless elements of this work out of their love for Renaissance.

Kamrooz Aram, the Iranian-born, Brooklyn-based artist and 2014 Abraaj Group Art Prize recipient is back in Dubai with his second solo show at Green Art Gallery. Aram creates a site-specific installation that encompasses his passion for exhibition design, focusing on how an exhibition space stirs emotional response.

InCube Arts’ “INTERLACE,” curated by Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani, features three artists who weave into their work their personal life stories of growing up outside their homeland, as well as the challenges they faced while assimilating within a society that either ignored or misconstrued their native culture.

The group exhibition “White Cube…Literally,” curated by Amanda Abi Khalil at Dubai’s Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde (IVDE), reopens a debate posed by art critic Brian O’Doherty in his book Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space (1976) and forces us to tackle a complex and decades-old topic centered around artistic practices vis-à-vis the exhibition space.