The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi has placed four new installations across Al Ain to open the second Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial, The National reported on October 27. Roudhah Al Mazrouei’s Tassa, inspired by a traditional Emirati headpiece, measures 80 metres in diameter and sits atop Al Towayya Roundabout, creating a prominent landmark that ties into the community’s daily life. The newspaper said this work is the sole installation located within Al Ain city proper while the other three occupy Al Qattara Oasis, where they respond directly to the site’s layered history as a Unesco World Heritage location.
Al Mazrouei told The National the roundabout site felt especially fitting because she had attended school at the end of the same street, adding a personal dimension to the public commission. Those three additional pieces at the oasis explore themes of irrigation, extinction and refuge, drawing on the location’s longstanding role in sustaining human settlement in the desert. One of them, Asuncion Molinos Gordo’s Bil Hana wa Al Afia, uses rammed earth to replicate the branching, root-like structure of the falaj irrigation channels that have operated in the oasis for thousands of years.
The installations form the first wave of unveilings for the biennial, which The National described as running across Al Ain and Abu Dhabi until February 15, 2027. Artistic director Elvira Dyangani Ose has shaped the exhibition around the theme Home: A Glossary for a Communal Sense of Place, according to coverage in the newspaper. Under that framework the 21 participating Emirati and international artists examine how shared experiences, memory and everyday encounters continuously reshape people’s relationships with their surroundings.
The second edition emphasises monumental scale, direct community interaction and varied sensory encounters more than its predecessor, The National noted in related reporting. The inaugural Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial ran from November 2024 to April 2025 and featured more than 50 projects, several of which were later retained or acquired to expand the emirate’s permanent public art holdings. Organisers have scheduled the next set of reveals for November 15 in Abu Dhabi, where works will appear at locations including Mina Zayed, Souq Al Mina, Hidd Al Saadiyat and the Saadiyat Cultural District.
A public programme of conversations and activities will accompany the displays, giving visitors opportunities to engage with the artists and themes throughout the exhibition period. The Al Qattara Oasis works in particular build on research into the UAE’s traditional aflaj systems and their influence on the surrounding landscape, The National said. With the full roster now beginning to appear, the biennial aims to transform ordinary public spaces into venues for collective reflection on belonging and place.
