Between the Tides: A Gulf Quinquennial delves into the evolving artistic landscape of the GCC, featuring 21 artists and collectives from across the region, including the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Set to recur every five years, it showcases works across the fields of visual arts, architecture, and design, featuring painting, video, installation, and sculpture. Rather than a comprehensive survey, this exhibition reflects on significant moments within the field of visual production from the last five years.

This exhibition is co-curated by Executive Director of the NYUAD Art Gallery Maya Allison and Art Gallery Curator and Research Assistant Professor Duygu Demir. Their work evolved out of dialogues with artists and curators from across the region, in particular four that became their curatorial interlocutors: Abdullah Al Mutairi, Ali Ismail Karimi, Aseel AlYaqoub, and Ayman Zedani. Expanded beyond a national arts landscape, this exhibition brings together and makes visible a larger shared ecosystem. The title of the first iteration, “Between the Tides,” reflects the Gulf’s deep connection to lunar rhythms and a sense of time shaped by natural patterns. The exhibition showcases a wide variety of artistic styles, from emerging voices to well-known figures, and explores important themes such as urban growth, environmental change, heritage, identity, and representation.

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In an era where every second is amplified and life whirls past in a digital blur, Afra Al Dhaheri, in collaboration with a collective of international artists, reveals “Collective Exhaustion”, an interactive installation that probes the relentless pace of our existence, prompting us to pause and ponder amid our accelerated lives.

“I think about time as a concept, movement, and sound. When time is a restless insomniac, how do you rock it gently to sleep?” shares Afra, regarding the inspirations behind the concept. “I ground myself in the process of making work, constantly deconstructing and reconstructing elements of the material and concept. I seek meaning within the medium. I ground myself, here, in the process”.

“Today’s tempo shapes our perception of time urging us forward at an unsustainable pace. In the pursuit of keeping up, we often sideline the self. It’s in the art of pausing where we reclaim time’s true rhythm and our place in it.” says Johan O. R. Sterner, the co-creator of the installation for his ideas behind the project.

Embodying the external vs. the internal visualisation of our current state of existence through acceleration of time, the installation features a large-scale construction and will be set to an immersive sound and light work tailored to bring the piece to life. The project includes both an international dynamic and educational intention with artists from Denmark, Italy, Bulgaria, and Romania working collectively, alongside prospective Emirati artists from Zayed University under Afra’s mentorship practice.