Art, like the desert night, reveals its beauty to those who pause to look. Manar Al Ain runs until 4 January 2026, with installations at Al Qattara and Al Jimi Oases. Admission is free, with guided tours available for 50 AED. Evening visits are recommended – the art reveals its full magic after dark.
Beneath the vast, indigo dome of the desert night, a silent miracle is unfolding. The ancient palm trees of Al Ain, steadfast sentinels of history for centuries, are learning a new language: the language of light. This is not the harsh glare of modernity, but something far more poetic – a constellation of art installations that pulse, breathe, and converse with the stars themselves. This is Manar Abu Dhabi, and its 2025 edition is a siren call to those who believe that beauty, heritage, and the future can all share the same sacred ground.
The public art exhibition, a jewel in the crown of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, has made a deliberate and inspired journey inland. Having first illuminated the capital’s coastal fringes, it now arrives in the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Oases of Al Jimi and Al Qattara. Curated under the theme “The Light Compass,” the exhibition is a masterful exploration of navigation – not just by the stars that once guided Bedouin caravans, but through the intricate pathways of memory, culture, and contemporary connection.
Artistic Director Khai Hori, curating in the Gulf for the first time, speaks of the oasis with a sense of poetic reverence. “It’s alive, but it’s empty at the same time,” he observes, looking out across the palm-shaded expanses. “People often associate darkness with solitude or sadness, but it doesn’t have to be that way. With art, darkness can also be a celebration of the light you can find within it.” This philosophy required a delicate touch; installing artworks in such a historically sensitive environment was a careful collaboration with archaeologists, a process Hori describes as a lesson in heritage itself.
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The resulting installations are not mere objects to be seen, but experiences to be felt. They guide visitors on a sensory journey. You can walk the glowing, pixelated path of Khalid Shafar’s Sadu Red Carpet – a work that transforms traditional Bedouin weaving into a celebrity welcome fit for the quietest of deserts. Or you can sit in contemplative silence beneath the gentle, sound-responsive glow of Maitha Hamdan’s Breath of the Same Place, where a lone ghaf tree is draped in luminescent wiring that shifts colour with the ambient whisper of the oasis.
Elsewhere, the pulse of technology meets timeless human experience. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer presents two captivating works at Al Qattara Oasis. His Pulse Canopy suspends a grid of lights that beat in rhythm with visitors’ own heartbeats, while Translation Stream projects poems by Emirati writers in cascading patterns of Arabic calligraphy across the historic structures. Meanwhile, Ammar Al Attar’s Cycle of Circles offers a more meditative reflection on movement and routine through sequential photographs, a poignant reminder that life’s journeys are often circular.
This expansion from the coast to the desert interior represents a significant evolution for Manar. Co-curator Munira Al Sayegh frames it as a conceptual shift. “What happens when we move Manar away from the coast, from saltwater to freshwater?” she asks. “The same stars are guiding different waters. That contrast became really interesting for us.” It is a dialogue between landscapes, a demonstration that public art, in its most ideal form, should extend itself to everyone.
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Running nightly from 5:30 p.m. until midnight through 4 January 2026, with free admission, the exhibition is an open invitation. Guided tours, photography workshops, and subtle food-and-beverage pop-ups enhance the experience, transforming it from a passive viewing into an active, community-focused dialogue. The artworks, as Hori intended, are quiet. They do not demand your attention; they earn it. They ask you to pause, to peel back the layers, and to discover, in the heart of the desert, a celebration of the light we all carry within the dark.
