Seeing Ourselves

Some exhibitions impress you. Others stay with you because of the conversation they create. This is exactly what happens at Bassam Freiha Art Foundation right now. Across three different exhibitions, the Foundation brings together contemporary photography, Orientalist painting, memory, heritage, landscape, and self-representation. At the heart of this dialogue, Seeing Ourselves presents the work of Emirati female students from Zayed University a new generation shaping its own narrative, through its own gaze. What makes the experience so powerful is not only the beauty of the images, but the way the three rooms respond to one another. Past and present. External gaze and self-representation. Heritage and contemporary identity. It is delicate, intelligent, visually stunning, and deeply moving. A reminder that representation is never neutral. And that sometimes, the most powerful cultural moments happen when the gaze finally changes direction. One of our EMIRARTS big crush in Abu Dhabi this season.