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The second edition of the Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial, organised by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi), opened yesterday in Al Ain. Presented under the theme Home: A Glossary for a Communal Sense of Place, the Al Ain chapter brings four newly commissioned works to Al Qattara Oasis, part of the UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape of Al Ain, and to Al Towayya Roundabout, placing contemporary art within working farms, historic irrigation networks and the everyday routes of the city. The Al Ain works remain on view until 15 February 2027, with the Biennial opening across Abu Dhabi on 15 November 2026.
Under the artistic direction of Elvira Dyangani Ose, Artistic Director of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), the second edition approaches the concept of ‘home’ as an evolving, collective and plural condition rather than a static geographic site. Through distributed commissions, research-led practices and public encounters, the Biennial prioritises sustained engagement, inviting audiences to interact with art in their everyday spaces. The title proposes that what communities share in relation to Abu Dhabi is not the place itself, but the capacity to construct meaning in relation to it, through the diverse vocabularies, practices and forms of knowledge that the glossary is designed to hold.
At Al Qattara Oasis, Moroccan artist M‘barek Bouhchichi presents ‘I am not the stone thrown into the water, but the seed sown in the field’ (2026), a stainless-steel work that reimagines the pigeon tower, a vernacular architecture found from North Africa to the Emirates, as a space of refuge and passage. Taking its title from Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North, the work carries a poem from Al Nahma, the traditional Emirati sea shanties sung by sailors, rendered in Braille across its structures. Nearby, Indian artist Reena Saini Kallat’s Thresholds: Requiem (The Last Call) (2026) reimagines twentieth-century acoustic locators, once designed to detect distant aircraft, as vessels for the calls of extinct and critically endangered bird species, several of which are native to, or migrate through, the UAE and the Arabian Peninsula. Spanish artist Asunción Molinos Gordo’s Bil Hana wa Al Afia (2026) centres on Al Aflaj, the traditional irrigation systems that originated during the Iron Age and continue to support shared water distribution among farmers in the Emirates. Built from rammed-earth walls arranged in a root-like form, its seven stratigraphic layers incorporate pottery, artefacts and other material traces from different historical periods, set among the working farms of the oasis.
At Al Towayya Roundabout, Emirati artist Roudhah Al Mazrouei, born in Al Ain, presents Tassa (2026), an 80-metre-diameter sculpture that reimagines the traditional Emirati gold headpiece as a monumental public landscape. Drawing on heirloom jewellery passed down through generations, the work transforms its cascading chains, curved forms and ornamental details into an immersive environment. Developed through conversations and workshops with children, Tassa proposes heritage as something lived, shared and continually reimagined.
Elvira Dyangani Ose, Artistic Director, Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial 2026–27, said: “What do we mean when we say home? It is one of the most used terms in any language, and yet many aspects of it often go unexamined. Home is not only a location. It is a condition: felt before it is understood, carried in the body before it is articulated in language. Al Ain is where this edition begins, in an oasis landscape shaped over millennia by cooperation, shared water and collective care. We offer this Biennial as a glossary, not as a guide to correct interpretations but as a set of terms to think with. The definitions are partial by design, and yours to complete.”
The Al Ain chapter inaugurates the Biennial’s second edition, which continues across Abu Dhabi from 15 November 2026 with further commissions, research-led projects and a public programme, details of which will be announced in the coming weeks. The second edition builds on the inaugural Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial, Public Matter (2024–25), which presented site-specific commissions by artists from the UAE and around the world. Several works from the first edition have since been acquired or retained as long-term installations, contributing to the emirate’s growing public art collection.
The Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial is on view in Al Ain from 23 October 2026 to 15 February 2027 and in Abu Dhabi from 15 November 2026 to 15 February 2027. All works are free to visit.