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Ala Younis at the NYUAD Art Gallery: Charting Arab Geographies through Art

The NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery opens its Fall 2025 exhibition tomorrow, September 23, with Ala Younis: Past of a Temporal Universe. On view until January 18, 2026, this survey brings together major works that span her career, alongside the premiere of three new projects.

In her work, Ala Younis focuses on two core subjects: modern Arab environments, and modern Arab identity. Her constellations of images and texts move from studying one Arab city to another. Works on view include her studies of Egyptian experience during the short-lived United Arab Republic (UAR), including High Dam (2019-ongoing), UAR (2013), and Nefertiti (2008). Also on view are stories behind Baghdad’s modern architecture, such as Plan and Plan (fem.) for Greater Baghdad (2015, 2018), and Battles in a Future Estate (2021–ongoing). This exhibition premieres Climate Conditions, her latest Arab-city-focused project, arising from her time living in Abu Dhabi, when she noticed how buildings in the UAE must adapt to the reality of the intense weather systems that intersect in the Gulf.

As part of her work, she reflects on how Arab identity is made, in our collective imagination. In Enactment (2017) she traces how individual bodies join broader political moments, as with region-wide celebrations or funerals in the streets. Drachmas (2018) traces the stages of Arab daytime television dramas, filmed largely in the Gulf, including in the UAE. In Friendship Gardens (2023–ongoing) she studies playgrounds, diplomacy among nations, and the impact of the Emirati comic book, Majid Magazine, a weekly activity book that shaped generations of Arab children before the Gulf wars. All of her work shares a concern for the fragility of what we make and how we live. In one of her most recent projects, Cut Flowers, she considers the movement of the flowers across borders: a delicate flower petal has only 7 days before its value on the open market disappears.

“It is a profound honor – and extremely energizing – to work with Ala Younis on this two-decade survey of her work. I have long-admired her hybrid practice as artist-researcher-curator. Working with her animates my thinking about the future of art exhibitions in the era of global museums. Within a university, our mandate as an academic museum is to consider exactly the kind of complex questions that she asks in her work. I’m gratified to see that vision realized here: making possible this kind of deep and sustained experimentation with research and form, and collaboration across disciplines.”

Executive Director of the NYUAD Art Gallery and University Chief Curator Maya Allison

This retrospective highlights the exchange made possible in the space of an art museum embedded in the world of a university, framed by the aspirations of the broader region today. A new chapter in her High Dam project emerged out of Younis’ collaboration with NYUAD Associate Professor of History Masha Kirasirova, a scholar of Soviet-Arab relations. Other work in the exhibition was developed with support from NYUAD’s al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art, and the Arts and Humanities Research Kitchens.

“Being one of Abu Dhabi’s Majid Magazine readers as a child, I learned to be inquisitive about Arab culture in the world. I became committed to personalized storytelling with awareness of cultural context. I weave between the personal and the collective in my storytelling. Working within a university museum context makes possible many added layers of exchange with others who study, teach, and learn around the questions that drive my investigation. I’m particularly looking forward to the faculty led programs that we are developing around the questions in the exhibition.”

Artist-researcher- curator Ala Younis

Executive Director of the NYUAD Art Gallery and University Chief Curator Maya Allison said: “It is a profound honor – and extremely energizing – to work with Ala Younis on this two-decade survey of her work. I have long-admired her hybrid practice as artist-researcher-curator. Working with her animates my thinking about the future of art exhibitions in the era of global museums. Within a university, our mandate as an academic museum is to consider exactly the kind of complex questions that she asks in her work. I’m gratified to see that vision realized here: making possible this kind of deep and sustained experimentation with research and form, and collaboration across disciplines.”

Younis’ works have been featured in major biennials and exhibitions worldwide, including Venice, Sharjah, Istanbul, and Gwangju, as well as the New Museum Triennial in New York. Her curatorial achievements include co-directing Singapore Biennale 2022, co-heading Berlinale’s Forum Expanded (2021–2024), and serving as Artistic Director of the Academy of the Arts of the World in Cologne (2023–2025). Her works are held in major international collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (US), Barjeel Art Foundation (UAE), and Darat al Funun (Jordan).

The exhibition’s programming will draw on NYUAD’s faculty expertise and cross-disciplinary strengths, further reinforcing the gallery’s role as a platform for experimentation, research, and innovation.

Exhibition title: Ala Younis: Past of a Temporal Universe
Exhibition dates: September 23, 2025 – January 18, 2025
Admission: Free
Exhibition page: Click here for more details

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