Memories of home by Salah Elmur

Welcome back to AL-MONITOR Dubai.

Dubai Design Week takes over d3 this week, while Sudanese painter Salah Elmur brings memories of home to Jameel Arts Center in a major solo exhibition. We explore both in this edition, alongside highlights from Christie’s Abu Dhabi debut and a new address for Levantine dining.

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Happy reading,

Rebecca

P.S. Have feedback or tips on Dubai's culture scene? Send them my way at contactus@al-monitor.com.

1. Leading the week: ‘Just as the Heart of a Mango is a Stone’  

Salah Elmur. “Fire Behind the Mountain.” 2025. Acrylic on canvas. (Photo courtesy of the artist and Art Jameel)

A major exhibition by Sudanese artist Salah Elmur is now on view at Jameel Arts Center in Dubai. The exhibition features paintings, archival photographs, sketches, objects and documents from the last decade of Elmur’s practice, alongside loans from major regional and international collections.

Organized into three chapters, the exhibition explores how memory, landscape and identity intersect during periods of political upheaval. Focusing on works produced after 2018, it traces Elmur’s deep connection to his homeland, Sudan, while he is based in Egypt. His vivid paintings blend myth with memories of his upbringing near the Blue Nile, where the rhythms of daily life, industry and agriculture left a lasting impression on him.

Curated by Zain Al Saie and Qutouf Elobaid, the exhibition is being staged as conflict continues to rage in Sudan. Elmur’s latest work directly tackles the experience of distance and grief following upheaval in his homeland. It also draws heavily on his family's photographic legacy at Studio Kamal in Khartoum. By reworking archival studio photographs, Elmur paints his subjects a second time, giving photographic history a new way to be seen.

Dates: until March 14, 2027

Location: Jameel Arts Center, Al Jaddaf, Dubai

Find more information here.

2. Word on the street: Nayara 

An exterior view of Nayara in the Arabian Court inside One&Only Royal Mirage in Dubai. (Photo courtesy of Nayara)

A new upscale, open-air Levantine restaurant has opened at the renowned Arabian Court at the One&Only Royal Mirage in Dubai. Nayara blends the culinary traditions of Lebanon, Syria and the wider Eastern Mediterranean with elements of regional fashion and architecture. Designed in collaboration with Emirati couture designer Hamda Al Fahim, the venue features a bespoke hand-drawn floral motif across a limestone feature wall, as well as custom-designed apparel for the service team.

The menu offers generous, contemporary interpretations of familiar Levantine favorites. Highlights include succulent lamb chops, the restaurant’s signature mixed grill and delicious seasonal cold and hot mezze designed for sharing. Set around a central fountain and illuminated by lanterns, the space also offers intimate private dining experiences in the Nur Majlis and Ghadir Majlis.

Location: One&Only Royal Mirage, Arabian Court, Dubai

Find more information here.

3. Dubai diary

“Enfold” by DEOND and “The Neo-Majlis” by Future Bedouin at Dubai Design Week, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Dubai Design Week)

• Dubai Design Week returns for 12th edition

Dubai Design Week returns for its 12th edition, focusing on how design can foster human connection, community and dialogue at a time when global communication is rapidly evolving. This year’s program includes exhibitions, installations, workshops and panel discussions covering architecture, craft, technology and material experimentation. A central highlight is Downtown Design (Nov. 4-8), the region’s leading contemporary design fair. The festival will conclude with the outdoor weekend Marketplace (Nov. 7-8), which will support homegrown businesses, independent makers and artisans.

Dates: Nov. 3-8

Location: Throughout Dubai Design District (d3)

Find more information here.

• Nada Elkalaawy, “The Butterfly’s Burden”

The London-based, Alexandria-born figurative artist Nada Elkalaaway explores the raw intersections of personal grief, memory and transformation in her latest solo show at Lawrie Shabibi. Taking its title from a poignant verse by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, the exhibition addresses the delicate friction between aesthetic sensitivity, beauty and profound emotional weight. Through a series of paintings developed using layered processes of accumulation and erasure, Elkalaawy explores memory, loss, regeneration and the passage of time.

Dates: until Nov. 7

Location: Lawrie Shabibi, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

Find more information here.

• ‘As I Bask in Your Light, it Seeps to My Soul’

Following his acclaimed 2025 exhibition “Garden of Murmurs,” Malik Thomas Jalil Kydd’s highly anticipated second solo show presents a new body of work that marks a significant evolution in his artistic practice. While his previous series placed mythological figures in vast, “angel-scale” landscapes, Kydd's latest collection turns toward more intimate, human subjects. The exhibition explores domestic interiors and quiet encounters, presenting figures with deliberate anatomy and nuanced gestures.

Dates: Nov. 16, 2026 - Jan. 5, 2027

Location: Carbon 12, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

Find more information here.

4. Book of the week: ‘Notes from a Lost Country’ 

How do you rebuild a life when the past is either a haunting physical scar or a fading fog? In “Notes from a Lost Country,” published by Saqi Books, acclaimed Iraqi author Sinan Antoon explores the dual landscapes of exile through the stories of two unforgettable men. Omar arrives in America with a false identity, haunted by the memory of deserting the Iraqi army and the brutal punishment that cost him his ear. Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, Sami, a once-respected Baghdad doctor, sinks deeper into dementia as his present dissolves into a waking dream of prewar Iraq. As their lives intersect, Antoon crafts a deeply resonant exploration of how the wounds of war refuse to be forgotten.

5. View from Abu Dhabi

Christie’s MAWASIM auction at The Abu Dhabi EDITION on Nov. 1 raised more than $8.9 million, marking 20 years since the auction house’s first UAE sale. (Photo courtesy of Christie’s)

6. By the numbers

• Christie’s inaugural auction in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 1 fetched $8.94 million, its highest total for a Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art Evening Sale in more than a decade.
• Notable sales included “Variations on the Hexagon” (2006) by the late Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, which led the sale, which fetched $844,800 against an estimate of $150,000-$250,000.
• Paul Guiragossian’s “Noces” (Wedding) (1958-59) fetched $486,400. His work also featured in Christie’s inaugural UAE auction in 2006. 
• More than 30% of registrants were millennials or members of Generation Z, while 37% were new to Christie’s, according to the auction house.