Quoz Arts Fest 2026 turns Dubai’s Al Quoz district into a walkable stage, where for two days art, music, and food take over warehouses, courtyards, and the streets of Alserkal Avenue. For January, it is one of the city’s key events, offering, in a single weekend, a vivid snapshot of the regional scene, from experimental installations to hip hop and family activities.
When and where
• Dates: 24–25 January 2026, a full weekend.
• Location: Alserkal Avenue and the wider Al Quoz Creative Zone, a creative industrial district with galleries, studios, cafés, and performance spaces.
Art and installations
• Space as medium: warehouses, back lanes, and courtyards become a single exhibition field, from white‑cube galleries to temporary walls and façades used for site‑specific installations.
• Headlining installation: TAPE by Croatian collective Numen/For Use at Concrete, a giant semi‑transparent structure made of multiple layers of tape, which visitors can physically move through, turning the piece into both architectural sculpture and a playful environment.
• Social dimension of art: a multimedia presentation by studio Mawaheb, featuring artists with determination, together with inclusive workshops, shows how Dubai’s art scene is slowly shifting from representation to participation and co‑creation.
Themes and artistic language
• Experiment and hybridity: many projects balance between visual art, performance and sound, including light‑based work, interactive objects, and performative installations that respond to the presence of the viewer.
• City and body: several works directly engage the body in space, from kinetic structures to environments that must be walked through, climbed into, or “lived in” for the piece to fully reveal itself.
• Memory and identity: video and photography projects by local artists explore migration, family histories, and the visual codes of the Gulf: how a global city develops new forms of memory and belonging.
Music and performance
• Headliners: Palestinian hip‑hop collective DAM and Lebanese singer‑songwriter Yasmine Hamdan present sets where music extends their cultural and political narratives of the region.
• Other performers: TootArd and Gayathri Krishnan add Levantine psych, desert blues, and Indian soul, turning the evening concerts into another layer of performative art.
• Special formats: From the Lips to the Moon, a collaborative spoken‑word and music performance by Pouya Ehsaei and Tara Fatehi, builds a non‑linear narrative about migration and transborder identity through text, voice, and sound.
City, food, and community
• Urban experience: the festival is spread across the district. Visitors move from gallery to warehouse, from courtyard to installation, constantly shifting between the programme and the urban fabric itself.
• Food and markets: curated pop‑ups, local food initiatives, and design markets add a “second layer” to the art programme, showing how Dubai’s creative industries cluster within a single neighbourhood.
• Place in the ecosystem: as the Alserkal team notes, Quoz Arts Fest has grown alongside Dubai’s creative community and now acts as a platform for shared experience, a space where artists, neighbours, and guests meet in a common public environment.
Why it matters in 2026
• For the local scene, the festival highlights the depth of regional talent. A significant part of the exhibitions and performances is created by artists for whom Al Quoz is not a showcase, but an everyday workspace.
• For international visitors, Quoz Arts Fest offers a rare chance to see an alternative Dubai, not fair pavilions and malls, but warehouses, lanes, and communities where contemporary art literally grows from door to door.
To learn more about the Quoz Arts Fest 2026, please visit its official website.
In addition, you might be interested in exploring the Ras Al Khaimah Art Festival 2026 and Sikka Art & Design Festival 2026. We would also recommend that you read our articles about some beautiful public art in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
