Rami Farook's intervention removes four square metres of the wall. Photo: Ishara Art Foundation
Rami Farook's intervention removes four square metres of the wall. Photo: Ishara Art Foundation
Rami Farook's intervention removes four square metres of the wall. Photo: Ishara Art Foundation
Rami Farook's intervention removes four square metres of the wall. Photo: Ishara Art Foundation

No Trespassing: Dubai exhibition challenges contradiction between gallery and street art


Razmig Bedirian
  • English
  • Arabic

When curator Priyanka Mehra invited Fathima Mohiuddin to create works for a summer exhibition at the Ishara Art Foundation, she sensed a certain hesitation – a diffidence that suggested the street artist was out of her element.

Mohiuddin, who goes by the moniker Fatspatrol, is known for her sprawling bold murals. She has covered the facades of buildings in the UAE and Canada with her work. A famous local example is For the Love of Birds, where she decked seven buildings on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi with images of birds found in the UAE.

But the Mohiuddin in the gallery space was not the same artist that Mehra had become familiar with over the years. “She produced some designs on what she was planning to do in the space,” Mehra says. “But in my head I thought ‘this isn’t the Fatspatrol I know’. She’s a strong player with scale, but that wasn’t coming out.”

Mohiuddin’s timidity was understandable. After all, a street artist in a gallery setting is a bit of an oxymoron.

Fatspatrol (Fathima Mohiuddin) used brooms to paint The World Out There. Photo: Ishara Art Foundation
Fatspatrol (Fathima Mohiuddin) used brooms to paint The World Out There. Photo: Ishara Art Foundation

Street art, by definition, is inextricable from the urban environment. It responds to the architecture, the social fabric, the noise, grime and politics of public space. By contrast, galleries are curated and controlled, even relatively sterile. If anything, galleries can be antithetical to the core ethos that drives street artists. When street art enters a gallery setting, the immediacy that gives it its edge is blunted. It becomes sapped of its subversive spirit.

But the new exhibition at Ishara Art Foundation challenges (or even embraces) this inherent contradiction between the gallery and street art.

No Trespassing is the first summer exhibition to be held at the foundation. Running until August 30, it brings six artists into the gallery – not to simply pin their works in the white space, but to treat it with the same way they would an open urban environment. “I told Fatspatrol to think of the space as a playground, not a white cube space,” Mehra says.

A week later, just before work on the exhibition was due to start, Mohiuddin returned from a trip to India with a “radical idea” of painting the space using a broom similar to those used by street sweepers. The result was a moving, even awe-inspiring gestural trail, with bold, fervent strokes from which emerge forms, like birds, faces and stop signs.

It is a thought-provoking work, particularly with the use of a broom – a tool used to sweep and clean – to imprint marks in the gallery. The work, dubbed The World Out There, also incorporated several scavenged objects, from discarded street signs and license plates to posters and scraps of wood.

“She could have gone very abstract with it, because it's easier to just make marks with the brooms. But then she has this beautiful, expressive quality,” Mehra says.

Mohiuddin’s work can be seen as the curatorial nucleus of No Trespassing. It is at the very centre of the exhibition, and is one of the few that is not in direct dialogue with adjacent works. But each work in the exhibition responds similarly to the gallery space. Some leave marks and even stage protests, whereas others speak out by removing elements.

A large-scale mixed-media work by H11235 (Kiran Maharjan). Photo: Ishara Art Foundation
A large-scale mixed-media work by H11235 (Kiran Maharjan). Photo: Ishara Art Foundation

Take the works in the opening space as examples. Kiran Maharjan, a street artist from Nepal who goes by H11235, presents two pieces that face one another. On the right is a collage that has many of the hallmarks of his oeuvre – blending photorealism with the digital while drawing parallels between architectural elements in the UAE and Nepal.

The work is the concept Maharjan had initially planned to paint in the space. However, as the artist wasn’t able to travel to the UAE due to visa issues, Maharjan as well as the Ishara team improvised, taking the initial design and abstracting it further. “We had to change the approach, because none of us can do this and paint like he does,” Mehra says.

Instead of rendering the hands and buildings with the photorealistic touch Maharjan is known for, the team replaced the design with materials, like corrugated steel and wood, blending them with acrylic panels. Thus, the project became at once a juxtaposition between what-is and what-could-have-been, while simultaneously testing the definition of authorship.

While Maharjan’s work is a vivid display of how an artist can leave a mark – even through their absence – Rami Farook does so by pulling elements out. The Emirati artist has removed a significant portion of one of the gallery’s walls, baring its metal framing and insulating wool. The gypsum board that was removed leans against the perpendicular wall – the dust from the removal process still left on the floor. The work is a thought-provoking example of intervening through erasure.

“It is a very conceptual piece,” Mehra says. “It is talking about extraction, and this is the only work that is an extraction, as compared to putting something on the surface, which also brings us down to ownership.”

The rest of the works in No Trespassing spotlight other public and personal interactions with urban landscapes. In For a Better Modern Something, Emirati artist Sarah Alahbabi presents cement blocks printed with maps and superimposed by LED strips that run the surface of the wall and floor. The work draws from Abu Dhabi’s urban fabric and came as a result of Alahbabi’s experiences as a pedestrian in the city.

Salma Dib's work in No Trespassing. Photo: Ishara Art Foundation
Salma Dib's work in No Trespassing. Photo: Ishara Art Foundation

The final space of the exhibition features two complimentary works. In Heritage Legacy Authentic, Palestinian-Filipino artist Khaled Esguerra reflects on the urban transformation of historic neighbourhoods. Sheets of ordinary copier paper are plastered on the floor, forming a surface that actively invites interaction.

Viewers are encouraged to stomp, tear, or even skid over the sheets. As the top layers strip away, words like Quality, Indulge and Fresh emerge, bringing to mind the sanitised rhetoric of billboards and commercial advertisements. These fragments of marketing-speak crowd the floor over the course of the exhibition, alluding to the takeover of gentrification.

The surrounding walls, meanwhile, are the work of Palestinian artist Salma Dib. Her layered, fragmented, and faded messages evoke the raw immediacy of graffiti – recalling how walls, in contested spaces, often become platforms of resistance for the voiceless. The work is inspired by the walls of Palestine, Jordan and Syria. The work, Mehra says, is rooted in Dib’s own experiences while visiting refugee camps, “waking up to something and by the night it isn’t there any more”.

The work, Mehra says, took the longest time to produce in the exhibition. “Because she first spray painted the words, then sands it, and then she puts posters up and spray paints a bit more,” Mehra says. “It took three weeks to make.”

Collectively, the works in No Trespassing prompt a reconsideration of the everyday aesthetic of the streets. By bringing elements like copier paper, construction materials or faded wall markings into the gallery, the exhibition shows how torn flyers and weathered signs are not just happenstance noise in urban life, rather carriers of memory and resistance.

if you go

The flights

Etihad and Emirates fly direct from the UAE to Seoul from Dh3,775 return, including taxes

The package

Ski Safari offers a seven-night ski package to Korea, including five nights at the Dragon Valley Hotel in Yongpyong and two nights at Seoul CenterMark hotel, from £720 (Dh3,488) per person, including transfers, based on two travelling in January

The info

Visit www.gokorea.co.uk

Essentials

The flights
Whether you trek after mountain gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda or the Congo, the most convenient international airport is in Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali. There are direct flights from Dubai a couple of days a week with RwandAir. Otherwise, an indirect route is available via Nairobi with Kenya Airways. Flydubai flies to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, via Entebbe in Uganda. Expect to pay from US$350 (Dh1,286) return, including taxes.
The tours
Superb ape-watching tours that take in all three gorilla countries mentioned above are run by Natural World Safaris. In September, the company will be operating a unique Ugandan ape safari guided by well-known primatologist Ben Garrod.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, local operator Kivu Travel can organise pretty much any kind of safari throughout the Virunga National Park and elsewhere in eastern Congo.

ESSENTIALS

The flights

Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.

The hotels

Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.

The tours

A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages. 

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Dates for the diary

To mark Bodytree’s 10th anniversary, the coming season will be filled with celebratory activities:

  • September 21 Anyone interested in becoming a certified yoga instructor can sign up for a 250-hour course in Yoga Teacher Training with Jacquelene Sadek. It begins on September 21 and will take place over the course of six weekends.
  • October 18 to 21 International yoga instructor, Yogi Nora, will be visiting Bodytree and offering classes.
  • October 26 to November 4 International pilates instructor Courtney Miller will be on hand at the studio, offering classes.
  • November 9 Bodytree is hosting a party to celebrate turning 10, and everyone is invited. Expect a day full of free classes on the grounds of the studio.
  • December 11 Yogeswari, an advanced certified Jivamukti teacher, will be visiting the studio.
  • February 2, 2018 Bodytree will host its 4th annual yoga market.
The specs

Engine: 1.5-litre turbo

Power: 181hp

Torque: 230Nm

Transmission: 6-speed automatic

Starting price: Dh79,000

On sale: Now

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The biog

Favourite book: Men are from Mars Women are from Venus

Favourite travel destination: Ooty, a hill station in South India

Hobbies: Cooking. Biryani, pepper crab are her signature dishes

Favourite place in UAE: Marjan Island

The specs

Engine: 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbocharged and three electric motors

Power: Combined output 920hp

Torque: 730Nm at 4,000-7,000rpm

Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic

Fuel consumption: 11.2L/100km

On sale: Now, deliveries expected later in 2025

Price: expected to start at Dh1,432,000

Where to donate in the UAE

The Emirates Charity Portal

You can donate to several registered charities through a “donation catalogue”. The use of the donation is quite specific, such as buying a fan for a poor family in Niger for Dh130.

The General Authority of Islamic Affairs & Endowments

The site has an e-donation service accepting debit card, credit card or e-Dirham, an electronic payment tool developed by the Ministry of Finance and First Abu Dhabi Bank.

Al Noor Special Needs Centre

You can donate online or order Smiles n’ Stuff products handcrafted by Al Noor students. The centre publishes a wish list of extras needed, starting at Dh500.

Beit Al Khair Society

Beit Al Khair Society has the motto “From – and to – the UAE,” with donations going towards the neediest in the country. Its website has a list of physical donation sites, but people can also contribute money by SMS, bank transfer and through the hotline 800-22554.

Dar Al Ber Society

Dar Al Ber Society, which has charity projects in 39 countries, accept cash payments, money transfers or SMS donations. Its donation hotline is 800-79.

Dubai Cares

Dubai Cares provides several options for individuals and companies to donate, including online, through banks, at retail outlets, via phone and by purchasing Dubai Cares branded merchandise. It is currently running a campaign called Bookings 2030, which allows people to help change the future of six underprivileged children and young people.

Emirates Airline Foundation

Those who travel on Emirates have undoubtedly seen the little donation envelopes in the seat pockets. But the foundation also accepts donations online and in the form of Skywards Miles. Donated miles are used to sponsor travel for doctors, surgeons, engineers and other professionals volunteering on humanitarian missions around the world.

Emirates Red Crescent

On the Emirates Red Crescent website you can choose between 35 different purposes for your donation, such as providing food for fasters, supporting debtors and contributing to a refugee women fund. It also has a list of bank accounts for each donation type.

Gulf for Good

Gulf for Good raises funds for partner charity projects through challenges, like climbing Kilimanjaro and cycling through Thailand. This year’s projects are in partnership with Street Child Nepal, Larchfield Kids, the Foundation for African Empowerment and SOS Children's Villages. Since 2001, the organisation has raised more than $3.5 million (Dh12.8m) in support of over 50 children’s charities.

Noor Dubai Foundation

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched the Noor Dubai Foundation a decade ago with the aim of eliminating all forms of preventable blindness globally. You can donate Dh50 to support mobile eye camps by texting the word “Noor” to 4565 (Etisalat) or 4849 (du).

MATCH INFO

Karnataka Tuskers 110-5 (10 ovs)

Tharanga 48, Shafiq 34, Rampaul 2-16

Delhi Bulls 91-8 (10 ovs)

Mathews 31, Rimmington 3-28

Karnataka Tuskers win by 19 runs

Brief scoreline:

Crystal Palace 2

Milivojevic 76' (pen), Van Aanholt 88'

Huddersfield Town 0

MATCH INFO

Mainz 0

RB Leipzig 5 (Werner 11', 48', 75', Poulsen 23', Sabitzer 36')

Man of the Match: Timo Werner (RB Leipzig)

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

Tewellah by Nawal Zoghbi is out now.

Global state-owned investor ranking by size

1.

United States

2.

China

3.

UAE

4.

Japan

5

Norway

6.

Canada

7.

Singapore

8.

Australia

9.

Saudi Arabia

10.

South Korea

Bio

Age: 25

Town: Al Diqdaqah – Ras Al Khaimah

Education: Bachelors degree in mechanical engineering

Favourite colour: White

Favourite place in the UAE: Downtown Dubai

Favourite book: A Life in Administration by Ghazi Al Gosaibi.

First owned baking book: How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson.

UAE SQUAD

Omar Abdulrahman (Al Hilal), Ali Khaseif, Ali Mabkhout, Salem Rashed, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Khalfan Mubarak, Zayed Al Ameri, Mohammed Al Attas (Al Jazira), Khalid Essa, Ahmed Barman, Ryan Yaslam, Bandar Al Ahbabi (Al Ain), Habib Fardan, Tariq Ahmed, Mohammed Al Akbari (Al Nasr), Ali Saleh, Ali Salmin (Al Wasl), Adel Al Hosani, Ali Hassan Saleh, Majed Suroor (Sharjah), Ahmed Khalil, Walid Abbas, Majed Hassan, Ismail Al Hammadi (Shabab Al Ahli), Hassan Al Muharrami, Fahad Al Dhahani (Bani Yas), Mohammed Al Shaker (Ajman)

What is graphene?

Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.

It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.

Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.

By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.

At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.

It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.

But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.

In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties. 

 

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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Scores

Scotland 54-17 Fiji
England 15-16 New Zealand

Top investing tips for UAE residents in 2021

Build an emergency fund: Make sure you have enough cash to cover six months of expenses as a buffer against unexpected problems before you begin investing, advises Steve Cronin, the founder of DeadSimpleSaving.com.

Think long-term: When you invest, you need to have a long-term mindset, so don’t worry about momentary ups and downs in the stock market.

Invest worldwide: Diversify your investments globally, ideally by way of a global stock index fund.

Is your money tied up: Avoid anything where you cannot get your money back in full within a month at any time without any penalty.

Skip past the promises: “If an investment product is offering more than 10 per cent return per year, it is either extremely risky or a scam,” Mr Cronin says.

Choose plans with low fees: Make sure that any funds you buy do not charge more than 1 per cent in fees, Mr Cronin says. “If you invest by yourself, you can easily stay below this figure.” Managed funds and commissionable investments often come with higher fees.

Be sceptical about recommendations: If someone suggests an investment to you, ask if they stand to gain, advises Mr Cronin. “If they are receiving commission, they are unlikely to recommend an investment that’s best for you.”

Get financially independent: Mr Cronin advises UAE residents to pursue financial independence. Start with a Google search and improve your knowledge via expat investing websites or Facebook groups such as SimplyFI. 

Essentials
The flights: You can fly from the UAE to Iceland with one stop in Europe with a variety of airlines. Return flights with Emirates from Dubai to Stockholm, then Icelandair to Reykjavik, cost from Dh4,153 return. The whole trip takes 11 hours. British Airways flies from Abu Dhabi and Dubai to Reykjavik, via London, with return flights taking 12 hours and costing from Dh2,490 return, including taxes. 
The activities: A half-day Silfra snorkelling trip costs 14,990 Icelandic kronur (Dh544) with Dive.is. Inside the Volcano also takes half a day and costs 42,000 kronur (Dh1,524). The Jokulsarlon small-boat cruise lasts about an hour and costs 9,800 kronur (Dh356). Into the Glacier costs 19,500 kronur (Dh708). It lasts three to four hours.
The tours: It’s often better to book a tailor-made trip through a specialist operator. UK-based Discover the World offers seven nights, self-driving, across the island from £892 (Dh4,505) per person. This includes three nights’ accommodation at Hotel Husafell near Into the Glacier, two nights at Hotel Ranga and two nights at the Icelandair Hotel Klaustur. It includes car rental, plus an iPad with itinerary and tourist information pre-loaded onto it, while activities can be booked as optional extras. More information inspiredbyiceland.com

What the law says

Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.

“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.

“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”

If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.

ESSENTIALS

The flights 
Emirates, Etihad and Swiss fly direct from the UAE to Zurich from Dh2,855 return, including taxes.
 

The chalet
Chalet N is currently open in winter only, between now and April 21. During the ski season, starting on December 11, a week’s rental costs from €210,000 (Dh898,431) per week for the whole property, which has 22 beds in total, across six suites, three double rooms and a children’s suite. The price includes all scheduled meals, a week’s ski pass, Wi-Fi, parking, transfers between Munich, Innsbruck or Zurich airports and one 50-minute massage per person. Private ski lessons cost from €360 (Dh1,541) per day. Halal food is available on request.

COMPANY%20PROFILE
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if you go

The flights Fly Dubai, Air Arabia, Emirates, Etihad, and Royal Jordanian all offer direct, three-and-a-half-hour flights from the UAE to the Jordanian capital Amman. Alternatively, from June Fly Dubai will offer a new direct service from Dubai to Aqaba in the south of the country. See the airlines’ respective sites for varying prices or search on reliable price-comparison site Skyscanner.

The trip 

Jamie Lafferty was a guest of the Jordan Tourist Board. For more information on adventure tourism in Jordan see Visit Jordan. A number of new and established tour companies offer the chance to go caving, rock-climbing, canyoning, and mountaineering in Jordan. Prices vary depending on how many activities you want to do and how many days you plan to stay in the country. Among the leaders are Terhaal, who offer a two-day canyoning trip from Dh845 per person. If you really want to push your limits, contact the Stronger Team. For a more trek-focused trip, KE Adventure offers an eight-day trip from Dh5,300 per person.

NBA FINALS SO FAR

(Toronto lead 3-2 in best-of-seven series)

Game 1 Raptors 118 Warriors 109

Game 2 Raptors 104 Warriors 109

Game 3 Warriors 109 Raptors 123

Game 4 Warriors 92 Raptors 105

Game 5 Raptors 105 Warriors 106

Game 6 Thursday, at Oakland

Game 7 Sunday, at Toronto (if needed)

The specs

AT4 Ultimate, as tested

Engine: 6.2-litre V8

Power: 420hp

Torque: 623Nm

Transmission: 10-speed automatic

Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)

On sale: Now

The Settlers

Director: Louis Theroux

Starring: Daniella Weiss, Ari Abramowitz

Rating: 5/5

Updated: July 29, 2025, 2:51 AM`