Under the Same Sky is a collective exhibition which is on view at The Rizq Art Initiative (RAi) in Abu Dhabi until 20 July 2026. Curated by Meena Vari, the show features 20 artists who live and work in the United Arab Emirates, celebrating the country’s cultural diversity while reflecting on the many ways people form connections with a place they call home. Through a wide range of media, the participating artists offer personal responses to the UAE, creating a multifaceted portrait of a nation shaped by both heritage and migration.
The exhibition unites Emirati artists with practitioners from across the world who have moved to the country and demonstrates how shared experiences can transcend differences in language, nationality, and cultural background. The show considers belonging as something that develops through everyday encounters with landscapes, architecture, traditions, and communities, suggesting that identity is continually shaped by one’s relationship with place.
The idea for the exhibition emerged from curator Meena Vari’s experience of settling in the UAE. She invited each participating artist to respond to a simple but open-ended prompt: to create a work inspired by something they had encountered in the Emirates that had stayed with them, whether a landscape, an architectural element, or an object. The resulting exhibition unfolds as a collection of individual observations and encourages visitors to consider how seemingly ordinary moments and familiar surroundings contribute to a broader understanding of home.
Rizq Art Initiative arrived on Abu Dhabi’s Al Reem Island in late 2023, founded by art historian and entrepreneur Shafeena Yusuff Ali, with Meena Vari as curator. It operates as a registered social enterprise, channelling a significant share of its earnings back into a residency programme and publishing projects. In under three years, RAi has grown from a single space at Leaf Tower into one of the city’s most active independent art institutions.
Among the participating Emirati artists is Maitha Al Omaira, whose practice engages with the UAE’s nature and cultural identity. She presents cyanotypes centred on the ghaf tree, the UAE’s national tree, long regarded as a symbol of resilience. Employing one of the earliest photographic printing processes, she transforms botanical forms into luminous blue images that evoke both the passage of time and the importance of preserving the country’s natural heritage.
Also featured are Shamsa Al Mansoori and Sara Al Sulaimani. Al Mansoori contributes Framed Memories (2026), a series of works in which she examines the shifting landscapes of the UAE, navigating the space between the stillness of the desert and the rapid urban expansion of her home city. Al Sulaimani presents a similar art piece, Fertile Dunes (2023), inspired by the poetry of the UAE’s Founding Father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. It focuses on the transformation of the urban environment through the evolving landscape of the Abu Dhabi Corniche. The work exemplifies the exhibition’s broader interest in how cultural memory can be preserved while embracing change.
The show also highlights the experiences of artists whose personal histories span multiple cultures. Palestinian-Lebanese-American artist Tala Atrouni incorporates traditional Palestinian tatreez embroidery into works that investigate displacement, identity, and belonging. Similarly, British-Lebanese textile artist and designer Nour Hage produces highly personal talismanic objects inspired by textile traditions that connect her hometown with her adopted home in the UAE. Her creations serve as vessels of memory, carrying traces of multiple geographies while reflecting the emotional dimensions of migration.
French artist Karine Roche, who has resided in Abu Dhabi for many years, showcases works inspired by the Emirati landscape, particularly its mangrove ecosystems. Indian artist Simrin Mehra-Agarwal, whose practice examines the fragile ecosystems of the UAE and the relationship between people and the natural world, also contributes works inspired by the country’s natural environment: CAVERNOUS-II (2024-2025) and MORPHOGENESIS-III (2025). They explore deep-sea transformation and ecological evolution beneath the region’s skies.
Some of the most compelling exhibits emerge from close observation of ordinary objects and overlooked histories. Maltese artist Adrian Scicluna presents a found chair discovered in Abu Dhabi, transforming a familiar everyday object into a meditation on presence, absence, and the traces left by those who inhabit a place. Ahmed Al Reef, meanwhile, showcases Before the Union (2026), a mixed-media installation in which he revisits archival imagery and symbols associated with the early years of the UAE. The art piece invites viewers to reflect on the visual language through which the nation has represented itself over time.
The creatives taking part in the exhibition also include Nikolay Koshelev, French-Lao-Vietnamese artist Anne-Marie Lacroix, Palestinian-Jordanian artist Halaa El Boraa, Dina Nazmi Khorchid (Kuwait), Emirati artists Mouza Almheiri and Shamma Al Mazrouie, Iranian artists Elham Shafaei, Zahra Shafie, and Farah Soltani, as well as Pakistani artists Rabila Kidwai and Sophiya Khwaja.
Viewed collectively, the twenty artists resist any attempt to define the UAE through a single cultural perspective. The exhibition embraces multiplicity, acknowledging that contemporary Emirati society is shaped by countless overlapping histories and experiences. Memory, migration, architecture, ecology, craftsmanship, and everyday rituals intertwine to create a nuanced portrait of the country.
At a time when discussions of identity are increasingly shaped by ideas of mobility and globalisation, Under the Same Sky offers a thoughtful reminder that belonging is rarely fixed or singular. Instead, it emerges through lived experience, shared spaces and everyday acts of observation. By gathering artists with diverse backgrounds and artistic practices, the show celebrates the many ways in which people contribute to the cultural fabric of the UAE while affirming that, despite different journeys and perspectives, they continue to create under the same sky.
For more information about the exhibition, visit its official webpage.
In addition, you might be interested in viewing Ten Years of Art: Waddington Custot Dubai.
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