Welcome to the latest edition of The Arts Edit, the weekly newsletter from The National's Abu Dhabi newsroom rounding up this week's most noteworthy arts and culture stories.
IN FOCUS
It's official: the UAE's story will be told as it never has before this year.
The highly anticipated Zayed National Museum will open its doors in December, the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi has announced.
If you've driven by (or on) Saadiyat Island recently, you can already see its stunning design has risen – five steel structures inspired by the country's tradition of falconry, each shaped like a feather.
But much of what the museum will house has yet to be revealed. What we know is that it will exhibit artefacts telling the story of the UAE, including one of the world’s oldest natural pearls, called the Abu Dhabi Pearl, five folios from the famous Blue Quran, as well as a Magan boat, an 18-metre reproduction of the ancient vessel that will be displayed in the museum’s atrium.
"This museum is more than a place of preservation; it is a promise to future generations, a beacon of our identity and a space where our story is told not just through objects, but also through emotion, memory and vision. This institution will carry our story forward for generations to come,” says Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of DCT – Abu Dhabi.
The story will begin 300,000 years ago. But while the public will have to wait until December to see it unfold in person, the rich history of the UAE is currently on display all around us – and continues to capture the world's attention.
On Friday, a site of huge archaeological significance in Sharjah won Unesco World Heritage status, joining a list that includes Egypt's pyramids, India's Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China.
The Faya palaeolandscape is the latest site in the UAE to be placed on the Unesco list.
In July 2011, Unesco added several sites in Al Ain to its esteemed list, but as a single landmark: the Cultural Sites of Al Ain. They included cultural sites in Hafeet, Hili, Bidaa Bint Saud and Oases areas, featuring tombs from the Bronze Age and complex ancient irrigation systems that supplied the oasis city. Find out more here.
And the UAE's story is, of course, still unfolding. In a new exhibition at Manarat Al Saadiyat curated by Mouza Al Matrooshi, seven UAE-based artists are using photography as a tool of memory – particularly for areas in the Emirates that no longer exist.
Take Fares Al Kaabi’s project, Roots around our hearts and Weeping Roola. His photographs frame old doors, broken windows and other abandoned spaces. Al Kaabi grew up in a neighbourhood in Al Ain built in the 1970s, a place where he knew every nook and every family on the block, but is now gone.
The National's Razmig Bedirian spoke to the artists about the project, which you can learn more about here.
While Zayed National Museum is still several months away, galleries and museums are a great place to beat the summer heat in the UAE. Here are some of our favourite exhibitions on display now.
And there a number of notable new works on display at Louvre Abu Dhabi, which you can learn more about here.
At Abu Dhabi Art in November, three commissioned Al Ain-inspired works by two Emirati artists and one UAE-based Libyan artist will be exhibited for the first time, as part of Beyond Emerging Artists 2025. Find out more here.
As spectacular as Zayed National Museum is sure to be, no single institution will ever tell the UAE's story on its own. We look forward to share both the story of that institution ahead of the opening – and the many UAE stories happening all around us.
Is James Gunn's Superman an allegory for the Israel-Gaza war?
In James Gunn's new Superman film, a sophisticated military attacks innocent civilians from across a border fence, with children's lives hanging in the balance.
If that imagery evokes the Israel-Gaza war in your mind, you're not alone.
Social media posts have claimed the film is a critical response to Israel's actions in Gaza.
The film is “very anti-Israel”, said a five-star review on the Letterboxd app, which has garnered nearly nine million views across platforms. Another post, with 11 million views on X, claimed the film's criticism is “very explicit and in your face”.
The perceived political message has already been the subject of controversy. Gunn told The Times that the film is “about politics” and “morality”, that it's an “immigrant story", which sparked a backlash among supporters of US President Donald Trump’s sweeping anti-immigration policies.
Neither Gunn, nor any of the cast and crew, have publicly claimed the story is about Israel or Palestine, but early audiences have highlighted one of the film’s main threads as an allegory for the conflict.
But is the film about Israel and Palestine? It can certainly be interpreted that way, though perhaps not as overtly as many have claimed. Find our full breakdown here.
Why Arabic literature translators are needed more than ever
Nashwa Nasreldin believes the work of translators in literature is more urgent than ever.
"The opportunity now lies in uplifting the work and voices of translators based in the Middle East, who have less access to the support networks than we do living in the West," says the translator, editor and author.
Born in Kuwait to Egyptian parents, Nasreldin, who currently lives in Suffolk in the UK, continues: “Recently, we held our inaugural workshop for emerging translators in Gaza, run by the ArabLit platform, with each session led by experienced professional literary translators - some of the best in the field of Arabic/English literary translation.
"We need more translations to drown out the voices of those who try to rewrite our stories," she tells The National. "There has been an outpouring of literature from and about Gaza and Palestinians more broadly since October 7, 2023. This shows a recognition in the important role literature plays in recording, reporting, archiving and legacy-making."
Nasreldin has translated many works into English, including After Coffee by Egyptian author and academic Abdelrashid Mahmoudi, who won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2014.
Read more here.
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
· Haitham Yousif at Dubai Opera - September 5
· La Boheme at Dubai Opera - September 18 to 20
· The Scorpions at Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi - October 21
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
