In a region where cultural institutions are rapidly expanding their global influence, Dubai continues to cement its role as a nexus for artistic innovation. Efie Gallery’s exhibition, The Shape of Things to Come, stands as one of the season’s most compelling gestures—a gathering of six influential artists whose practices examine how societies remember, evolve, and envision the future.
Though spanning continents, mediums, and generations, the artists share a common thread: each uses material and form as a way to confront shifting histories and emergent futures. In Dubai—where the Middle East’s past, present, and speculative tomorrows collide—their voices resonate with renewed urgency.
Rethinking Heritage and the Stories We Inherit
Egyptian artist Iman Issa probes the fragile boundary between historical truth and interpretation. Her minimalist sculptural installations reduce ancient references to distilled shapes, paired with enigmatic texts. In works like Heritage Studies #29, Issa questions how artifacts become symbols, who interprets them, and how cultural memory is constructed across time.
Her approach is especially poignant in a Middle Eastern context, where heritage is both fiercely preserved and constantly re-examined.
Reassembling the World Through Material
The monumental metal installations of El Anatsui shimmer like living tapestries. Made from thousands of reclaimed bottle caps and wires, his works transform everyday materials into landscapes of memory and movement.
In Dubai—one of the world’s most dynamic crossroads—his pieces echo themes of trade, migration, and global entanglement, turning discarded fragments into powerful reflections on collective histories.
Textiles as Testimonies
Malian artist Abdoulaye Konaté uses fabric as both medium and language.
His work Resistance stretches nearly nine meters, combining cut bands of cloth into layered harmonies of colour. Each textile becomes a site of political and spiritual depth, channeling West African traditions while addressing contemporary struggles.
Konaté’s presence in Dubai highlights the city’s expanding role in connecting Africa, the Middle East, and the wider world through cultural dialogue.
New Languages of Protest and Abstraction
Through his Black Dada practice, American artist Adam Pendleton merges avant-garde aesthetics with the politics of Black representation.
His canvases—dense with silkscreened text, fragments of slogans, and restless marks—interrogate how language can be abstracted without losing its charge.
Pendleton’s work finds a natural home in a city defined by communication across borders, identities, and languages.
Identity in Flux
British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare contributes a series of sculptural masks that blend West African forms with European art-historical motifs.
These hybrid figures question the stability of cultural identity in a globalized world.
In Dubai, where multicultural histories meet and redefine each other daily, Shonibare’s sculptures feel like mirrors—reflecting the layered stories that shape contemporary life.
Architecture, Memory, and the Weight of History
Carrie Mae Weems offers a photographic meditation on architecture as a keeper of memory.
Her images from West Africa capture buildings that carry the marks of historical trauma yet remain active spaces of resilience and connection.
Weems’s reflections deepen the exhibition’s central question: How do the structures we inherit—physical, cultural, emotional—shape the futures we imagine?
A Collective Vision for the Middle East and Beyond
The Shape of Things to Come is more than an exhibition; it is a conversation about how art can reshape the narratives that define us.
By bringing these six voices together in Dubai, Efie Gallery situates the Middle East as a key site where global artistic futures are not only showcased but actively forged.
Location: Efie Gallery, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai
Dates: 11 October 2025 – 10 January 2026
