In its second edition, Manar Abu Dhabi returns with a quieter footprint but a deeper resonance. Running until 4 January 2025, the biennial public art exhibition narrows its geographical scope while expanding its conceptual ambition, using light not merely as spectacle, but as language—a medium through which the city’s histories, ecologies, and futures can be re-read.
Under the curatorial theme “The Light Compass”, Manar Abu Dhabi 2025 unfolds across two distinct yet complementary sites: the historic Mina Zayed port and the ecologically rich landscapes of Al Ain’s oases and Jubail Island. Together, they form a constellation of environments where light becomes both guide and question—pointing not toward a single direction, but toward multiple ways of understanding place.
Mina Zayed: Light as Threshold
Mina Zayed, once Abu Dhabi’s primary gateway to the world, carries the layered memory of trade, migration, and everyday life. Its transformation into a cultural site makes it an apt departure point for Manar’s second chapter. Here, light acts as a bridge between past and present, illuminating the port’s role as both infrastructure and lived space.
Dominating the harbour is KAWS: HOLIDAY Abu Dhabi (2025)—a monumental reclining figure gently holding a glowing moon. At once playful and contemplative, the installation introduces the exhibition’s celestial vocabulary. The moon, long used for navigation, timekeeping, and ritual, becomes a symbolic anchor for the curatorial vision. Artistic director Khai Hori frames it as humanity’s original compass: a source of rhythm, orientation, and shared meaning across cultures.
Rather than overwhelming the site, the work invites pause. Its scale contrasts with its stillness, encouraging viewers to slow down and consider how light has guided human movement—across seas, deserts, and centuries.
Oases of Al Ain: Light as Continuity
The exhibition’s most intimate dialogue between light and heritage unfolds in Al Jimi and Al Qattara Oases in Al Ain. These UNESCO-recognised landscapes, shaped by centuries of agriculture and water management, demand a sensitivity that Manar largely achieves.
At Souq Al Qattara, Khaled Shafar’s Sadu Red Carpet (2025) traces a glowing red pathway through a seventeenth-century fort. Drawing on the geometry of traditional Bedouin weaving, the work translates textile into illumination, allowing heritage to be both preserved and reactivated. Light here does not replace history; it renders it legible in contemporary terms.
Nearby, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Pulse Canopy (2025) introduces a participatory dimension. Thousands of lights pulse in sync with visitors’ heartbeats, transforming the oasis into a living archive of presence and breath. The work momentarily pauses during the call to prayer, acknowledging the rhythms that already structure life in the space.
In contrast, Ammar Al Attar’s Cycle of Circles (2025) offers a meditative counterpoint. Through illuminated photographic self-portraits, Al Attar reflects on memory, exposure, and shadow, reminding us that light is as much about what it reveals as what it withholds.
Jubail Island: Light as Experiment
If Al Ain speaks to continuity, Jubail Island offers openness and play. Described by Hori as a “raw canvas,” the island allows artists to engage with light in more speculative and experimental ways.
Collective DRIFT transforms the night sky through drone choreography and sculptural light environments that respond to wind and movement. Lachlan Turczan’s Veil I (2025) creates a mirage of laser light and mist, evoking ancient navigation practices that relied on stars and moonlight rather than maps.
Perhaps the most quietly powerful work is Shaikha Al Mazrou’s Contingent Object (2025). A shallow pool of seawater infused with salt, algae, and bacteria gradually changes colour through evaporation and crystallisation. Encircled by a delicate ring of light, the work feels both scientific and poetic—an artwork that evolves with heat, wind, and time. It is here that Manar’s vision feels most resolved: light emerging not as intervention, but as consequence.
Light as Ethics
What distinguishes Manar Abu Dhabi 2025 is its restraint. Rather than chasing spectacle, the exhibition asks what happens when light meets people, nature, and water—and when artists listen to a site before illuminating it. Across installations, light becomes a tool of care, reflection, and attentiveness.
In doing so, Manar proposes a model for public art in the region: one rooted not in monumentality alone, but in ecological awareness, cultural memory, and shared experience. Light, in this context, is not an answer—it is a compass, constantly shifting, guiding us through what has been, what is, and what might yet become.
