Until 30 August 2025, Ishara Art Foundation (IAF) is hosting No Trespassing, a group exhibition curated by Priyanka Mehra, IAF’s Exhibitions Manager and Programmes Curator. Displaying works by six UAE-based and South Asian artists, the show offers visitors a chance to reconsider the boundaries between public and institutional space, art and infrastructure, presence and erasure.
Here, the textures and materials of the street enter into direct dialogue with the pristine surfaces of the white cube. Multidisciplinary artist Fatspatrol (Fathima Mohiuddin) presents her installation, Offers The World Out There, built from “scavenged” objects embedded with gestural drawings that spill across the gallery walls. By reclaiming what is discarded or overlooked, Mohiuddin transforms urban debris into layered visual narratives.
Street artist H11235 (Kiran Maharjan) displays a large-scale, remotely produced mixed-media art piece that combines digitally abstracted forms with industrial materials. The work probes the liminal space between human experience and the built environment.
Khaled Esguerra, a Palestinian-Filipino artist, presents Heritage Legacy Authentic, a critique of how historic neighbourhoods are sanitised under redevelopment. Surrounding and interacting with this installation, Chicago-based Palestinian artist Salma Dib creates wall-based compositions of lettering, fragments, and tactile strata, distilling the residue of time, place, and authorship.
Emirati artist Rami Farook carves four square metres from the gallery wall to expose its hidden infrastructure. This makes the white cube physically vulnerable and raises questions about ownership of art and the spaces that contain it. Meanwhile, Emirati artist and educator Sara Alahbabi offers For a Better Modern Something, an installation shaped by her experience traversing Abu Dhabi on foot.
About the curator
With a background in design, Priyanka Mehra has led projects spanning public art commissions in the UAE, urban regeneration programmes in India, and Public Art Masterplans in Saudi Arabia. Her portfolio includes large-scale urban art festivals such as St+art Delhi, Public Art Commissions at Yas Bay in Abu Dhabi, and a tenure as project director for renowned site-specific artist Daku.
About Ishara Art Foundation
Founded in 2019 in Dubai, IAF is a non-profit dedicated to showcasing contemporary art from South Asia. Supporting emerging and established practices, the Foundation fosters critical dialogue and explores global interconnections. Guided by a research-led ethos, the Foundation realises its mission through exhibitions, public programmes, educational initiatives, and international collaborations, building bridges between South Asian and global artistic networks.
For more information about No Trespassing, please visit the exhibition’s official web page.
You might also be interested in exploring Summer Collective: Wavering Hope and I PUT MY BRAIN ON PAUSE!, Ihab Ahmad’s solo show.
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