Murals and installations across a historic neighbourhood in Dubai
Courtesy of Dubai Culture & Arts Authority.
The 14th edition of Sikka Art & Design Festival transforms Al Shindagha Historic Neighbourhood into an open-air site for public art, with murals and installations distributed across courtyards, façades and communal spaces. Presented under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairperson of the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority, the festival situates contemporary artistic practice within one of Dubai’s oldest urban districts. Running until 1 February 2026, the programme forms part of Dubai’s Quality of Life Strategy and reflects ongoing efforts to embed art within the everyday fabric of the city.
Scale, participation and the creative economy
This year’s festival brings together more than 250 works by UAE nationals, residents and artists from across the Gulf and beyond. The emphasis on public-facing projects aligns with Dubai Culture’s broader objectives of accessibility, participation and support for the cultural and creative industries. Rather than operating through a single exhibition venue, Sikka unfolds through the neighbourhood itself, positioning art as a shared civic experience rather than a contained event.
Murals as narratives of heritage and belonging
A central component of Sikka Art & Design Festival 14 is a series of eleven murals curated by Mozah Lootah. Drawing on Dubai’s urban fabric and social histories, these works engage with themes of memory, language, heritage and intergenerational connection. The murals extend the conceptual framework of the Memory House, which focuses on collective remembrance and the transmission of cultural knowledge.
Among the featured works, Emirati artist Eman Alrashdi’s ‘Al-Majlis’ documents an everyday coffee gathering as a site of warmth, familiarity and national identity. Amna Alketbi and Fatima Al Hammadi’s collaborative mural ‘Between the Past and the Present’ visualises the relationship between generations through the metaphor of a mother guiding her daughter. Other contributions explore similar concerns through diverse visual languages, including Nora Al Sabah’s reflection on nature and women’s cultural roles, and Noor Al Khamiri’s engagement with time, femininity and inherited wisdom.
Artists from a range of geographic and cultural contexts contribute to the mural programme, foregrounding personal and collective narratives shaped by movement, memory and place. Works by artists such as Ghiath Al Robih, Abdulrahman Abdulla Aldark, FATSPATROL, Sneak Hotep and German Fernandez address questions of identity, continuity and aspiration, situating local histories within broader regional and global frameworks.
Public art strategies and site-responsive practice
Beyond the mural programme, the courtyards of Al Shindagha Historic Neighbourhood host a wide range of installations that align with Dubai’s Public Art Strategy. These works foreground site responsiveness, participation, and experimentation, using the neighbourhood’s architectural and social contexts as active components of artistic production.
Installations by the S’ila Collective, including ‘Entrance of Tomorrow’ and ‘Views of Tomorrow’, reflect on cultural coexistence and the relationship between past and future. Interactive and experimental projects further expand the festival’s scope, incorporating language, technology, and material reuse. Works such as ‘Create (اِبدع)’ by Sandra Boutros, ‘The Pearl Majlis’ by Fuad Ali and Rahat Kunanunova, and ‘RE:Ground’ by Salma Hani Ali, Ajay Sunil and Omar AlAhmadani explore alternative modes of gathering, making and building.
Other projects engage directly with participation and encounter, from playground-inspired environments to digitally mediated installations employing real-time body tracking and projection. Together, these works emphasise public art not as ornamentation, but as a tool for dialogue, reflection and shared experience within the city.
By situating contemporary art within the historic fabric of Al Shindagha, Sikka Art & Design Festival 14 foregrounds the role of public art in shaping collective memory and urban life. The festival’s dispersed format and emphasis on accessibility position it as an ongoing platform for exchange between artists, communities and place.
Sikka Art & Design Festival 14 is on view at Al Shindagha Historic Neighbourhood in Dubai until 1 February 2026. For more information, please visit the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority.
