A Way Through: Archive of Resilience
Exhibition Duration
October 3 – December 7, 2026
Opening
Saturday, October 3, 2026 | 6PM - 8PM
Location Kutubna Cultural Center, Nadd Al Hamar, Dubai
Admission
Free entry
No booking
A Way Through: Archive of Resilience is an exhibition born out of the question: How will this time be remembered and who will tell the stories of the people who live here? The exhibition is one of the outcomes of Kutubna’s initiative Documenting Culture in the Gulf in a Time of War, an oral history project centring the experiences of diverse people living in the Khaleej.
The exhibition brings together over 40 artists and contributors from different generations and cultural backgrounds. Participation extends across the Gulf, with artists based in the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.
With over 70 works, the exhibition includes journals, poems, short stories and publications, embroidery, crochet, collage, paintings, digital works and photographs, showing the many ways, people responded to and documented this shared moment. Their works speak of resilience, protection, unity, faith, gratitude, and hope, while also reflecting moments of fear and uncertainty and a deeper connection to home.
Participants
Dr. Karima Alshomely (b. 1965, United Arab Emirates) is a visual researcher and educator from Sharjah. Her multidisciplinary practice spans painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture and installation, exploring women’s material culture, memory and identity. Her research focuses particularly on the Emirati burqa and the sahhara, a traditional bridal chest. She holds a BFA from the University of Sharjah, an MFA from Chelsea College of Arts and a PhD from Kingston University. Her major exhibitions include The Emirati Burqa: An Intimate Object, Sahhara: Hidden Adornments and the UAE Ministry of Culture’s 2026 presentation at Art Dubai.
Majd Al Henawi (b. 1993, Syria) is a creative visual artist based in the UAE, and he is a member of the Syrian Association of Plastic Artists. He has an extensive record of international and regional exhibitions, as well as numerous art grants and awards. With high visual skills and the ability to oversee various visual projects, he also works as a visual arts instructor and creative art director and makes significant contributions to the field of photography.
Mona Al Khaja (b. 1958, United Arab Emirates) is an innovative painter and a first-generation figure in the country’s modern art movement. She graduated from Helwan University’s Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1981. Moving between figuration and abstraction, her paintings transform landscapes, architecture, Islamic ornament and calligraphic elements into reflections on memory, time and belonging. She taught art for sixteen years and helped develop the UAE’s national art-education curriculum. Her work has appeared in the Sharjah Biennial, Cairo Biennial and Abu Dhabi Art, while her four-decade career was surveyed in the 2025 retrospective Caravan of Colors Through Time.
Essa Al Mohannadi (b. 1993, Qatar) is a visual artist based in Doha who explores heritage and identity through a contemporary visual language. Working primarily with acrylic and oil pastel, he draws inspiration from Arab culture, nature, and Arabic calligraphy, incorporating Kufic script and Qur’anic verses into compositions that combine texture and abstraction. The Arabian horse is a recurring subject in his work, reflecting its enduring place in the region’s history and cultural traditions. In 2025, he participated in a programme at The Art Students League of New York and exhibited his work at an international art exhibition in Manama, Bahrain. Through his Qatar-based studio, Essa Art Studio, he extends his practice beyond painting into hand-tufted rugs, fine porcelain, and collectible artistic editions, with an emphasis on craftsmanship and detail.
Khulood Al Jabri (b. 1967, United Arab Emirates) is a visual artist with over 40 years of experience, she began her career in 1985 at the Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi, where she worked for 21 years. From 2012 to 2025, she served as Deputy Head of the Visual Arts Department at the UAE Ministry of Culture and also held leadership roles at the Emirates Fine Arts Society. She has received several awards for her artistic achievements and has represented the UAE in international exhibitions and art forums. Alongside her artistic practice, she works as a consultant, juror, curator, and exhibition coordinator, while supporting emerging artists and young talent. Her work draws inspiration from Emirati identity, memory, and the local environment.
Neveen Abu Samra (Palestine - Poland) is a visual artist and designer based in Dubai. Her practice explores memory, materiality, and the traces of human experience. She works across abstraction and material-based processes, transforming everyday remnants and repeated gestures, into layered compositions. Her works invite viewers to engage with fragility and transformation, oscillating between presence and absence, clarity and ambiguity, while reflecting on the subtle traces left behind in both material and human experience. She is the winner of the Maska × Tashkeel Design Competition and the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week Global Digital Art Competition, with work held in notable collections including that of H.E. Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh. Her work has been exhibited across the UAE and internationally in Cairo, Brasília, Buenos Aires, South Korea, London, and the Netherlands.
Tagreed Albaqshi (Saudi Arabia) is a visual artist born in Al-Ahsa. She holds a Master's degree in Art Education and works as a supervisor of art education. She is a founding member of the Saudi Society for Fine Arts. Tagreed began her artistic journey in 1999, having held over 16 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 200 group exhibitions both locally and internationally. She is recognized for her distinctive artworks that convey personal visions and experiences through the use of colors and shapes. Notably, she became the first Saudi woman to win the Excellence in Fine Arts award at the Hajar Second Festival, as well as the Arab Gold Oscar award for her participation in a jewelry design competition. Tagreed has received several awards and honors, reflecting her positive influence on the field of visual arts in Saudi Arabia and beyond.
Anna Peshkova (b. 2000, Ukraine) is a visual artist based in Abu Dhabi, working primarily in oil painting. She graduated from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts and is a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. Her practice focuses on portraiture, landscape, and still life, drawing on the traditions of European academic realism. Her work is characterised by careful observation, refined colour relationships, and an interest in conveying both physical likeness and psychological presence. She approaches painting as a study of character, atmosphere, light, and the expressive possibilities of colour. After relocating from Ukraine to the UAE, her artistic practice has also become increasingly influenced by the visual and cultural environment of the Gulf, while remaining rooted in her academic training.
Yun Kusanagi (Youness) (b. 1983, Morocco) is an abstract expressionist based in Dubai, working between abstract expressionism and street art. Born in Casablanca and shaped by years in Derby, Belfast, Nottingham, and Edinburgh before settling in the UAE, his layered, instinctive acrylic paintings begin from what lingers — a conversation, a silence, a place — and build in response to themselves until the work feels honest enough to stop. In 2025, he was selected Grand Winner of the 25hours Hotel × World Art Dubai Artist in Residence programme, producing the series 4019 – Traces. His work has been shown at the Intent Gallery, World Art Dubai, Mondoir Gallery, Kutubna Cultural Center, and BOCA Restaurant, DIFC.
Aabidah Rakhange (b. 2006, India) is the founder of Abibi Arts and Calligraphers, an internationally recognized and exhibited creative force. Working primarily in gouache, she creates nostalgia-driven paintings that delve into heritage, identity and cultural memory. Drawing on her third-culture background, the Abibi Arts aesthetic is a distinct homage paid to themes of belonging and displacement. With her collective social media following of 70k+, her niche has built a community appreciative of contemporary art and storytelling.
Alina O'Dwyer (b. 1983, Russia) is a contemporary visual artist based in Dubai. Her multidisciplinary practice spans painting and embroidery, with a primary focus on textile as a medium for exploring memory and social change. Shaped by a life across Russia, Europe, and the Middle East, O'Dwyer's work uses stitch and thread alongside paint to explore memory, displacement, and the layers of culture and place that shape identity.
Dr. Alzahraa Soliman (b. 1993, Egypt) is a UAE-based visual artist, writer, and dentist whose multidisciplinary practice explores memory, identity, perception, and the emotional connection between people and place. Alongside her studio practice, Soliman has participated in exhibitions and cultural art initiatives across the UAE and founded a series of creative workshops that use art as a space for reflection, storytelling, and connection. As an artist, writer and a professional in dentistry, Soliman embraces the belief that a person can carry more than one title; she began by challenging that limitation within herself, allowing each discipline to become part of a wider creative identity.
Asha Divakaran (b. 1979, India) is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Dubai, with nearly 15 years of experience across art, design, and photography in both New York and Dubai. In 2025, she launched AxD Designs to bring her creative work together under one brand. She enjoys creating work that is thoughtful, distinctive, and sometimes whimsical or bold. Much of her inspiration comes from everyday objects and the quiet beauty found in ordinary moments.
Asma Alali (b. 1998, United Arab Emirates) is an M.A. student in English with research interests in English literature, literary criticism, and creative writing. Alongside her academic pursuits, she works as an environmental engineer while developing her practice as a serious creative writer.
Bettina Kulakowski (Germany) is a Dubai-based multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of textile art, embroidery, and contemporary mixed media. Her practice explores the quiet power of slow, intentional making, transforming everyday materials into tactile narratives that invite reflection and pause. Working with hand embroidery, fabric collage, and weaving, she balances structure and intuition, where repetition, texture, and layering become both process and language. Influenced by the philosophy of slow creation, she embraces imperfection, materiality, and time as essential elements of her work. She conducts workshops, guided by her practice, to encourage others to reconnect with creativity through mindful, hands-on processes.
Carlie Manalac (b. 1998, Philippines) is a visual artist, creative practitioner, and junk journaler based in Dubai, UAE. Her practice explores memory, identity, belonging, and everyday experiences through photography, collage, sketching, and mixed media. Drawing inspiration from personal moments, collected fragments, and ordinary details, she creates intimate visual narratives that reflect how memories are formed, preserved, and reinterpreted. Alongside her independent practice, Carlie contributes to ArtDialogo Asia as a Communication Visual Artist, where she crafts visual stories that celebrate art, culture, community, and everyday life.
Debra S. Mascarenhas (b. 1962, India) is a passionate writer and poet whose love for words has blossomed into a remarkable literary journey. With two published books to her name and a collection of over 6000 poems, as well as anthologies written in English, her work reflects depth, emotion, and the beauty of human experience. Alongside her poetry, she has also written several short stories that capture life, faith, resilience, and the quiet moments that often speak the loudest. Writing is not only her passion but also her voice, through which she continues to inspire and connect with readers. She is also an artist and has had several exhibitions where her artwork was displayed; her favorite theme in painting is landscape.
Diana Hancinska (b. 1989, Slovakia) is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose practice explores memory, emotion, inner worlds, connections and transformation. Working primarily with charcoal and ink, she creates emotionally driven works that examine the traces of personal experience and the ways memories and cultural traces shape our inner landscapes. Through an evolving practice rooted in observation and experimentation, she explores the space between what is remembered, what is felt and what remains with us. Her work invites viewers to slow down and look inward.
Dwa bint Khalid Al Khalifa (b. 1987, Bahrain) is an artist whose practice explores identity, memory, culture, and social perception through both traditional and digital media. Her work frequently draws upon symbols, visual narratives, and cultural references associated with Bahrain and the wider Gulf. Alongside her artistic practice, she holds postgraduate degrees in Fine Art Digital and Psychological and Behavioural Science, bringing an interdisciplinary perspective to her exploration of visual meaning. Her work has been exhibited internationally and has received recognition through regional and international art initiatives.
Fabi Faisel (b. 1999, India) is an architect, maker, and multidisciplinary creative currently based in Dubai. Alongside her architectural work, Fabi maintains an independent creative practice spanning visual art, wearable design, and certified tattoo artistry. Her work has been exhibited at Kutubna Cultural Center in Dubai, and she was shortlisted for the Vogue Arabia × IQOS Creators of Craft Challenge for her wearable design, the Palm Cuff. Having moved to the UAE just a year ago, Fabi has spent that time learning what it means to build a life and find a sense of home somewhere new. Photography, using her Fujifilm X-M5, has become a quiet thread running through that adjustment: a way of holding onto the small, unremarkable moments that made a disorienting first year, arriving right into an uncertain time, feel less alone.
Fares Alsuwaidi (b. 1979, United Arab Emirates) is a self-taught Emirati fiber artist based in Sharjah. He adapts traditional crochet techniques to create abstract art blankets.
Gino Banola (b. 1990, Philippines) focuses his practice on the revival and contemporary interpretation of Baybayin, an ancient Filipino writing system that predates Spanish colonization. Through workshops, exhibitions, and immersive design work, Banola brings Baybayin and Filipino heritage into contemporary spaces, encouraging audiences to reconnect with and appreciate Filipino cultural identity. Based in the United Arab Emirates, his work contributes to the preservation and cross-cultural appreciation of Filipino heritage. 
Hind Tukan (b. 2005, Jordan) is a filmmaker, photographer, and artist whose work moves between narrative film, stop motion, mixed-media photography, and conceptual art. Her practice explores dreams, symbolism, and the body as a site of voice and transformation, often poetic and experimental in nature. Her art invites audiences to feel meaning rather than decode it. She is an undergraduate student at New York University Abu Dhabi, studying Film and Design.
Jacinta Sabaganga (b. 1995, Kenya) is a barista at Kutubna Cultural Center. After a year at Kutubna, she became inspired by the art around her and discovered her own passion for creativity. She enjoys expressing ideas through creative work and continues to explore and develop her artistic practice.
Mona Biswarupa Mohanty (b. 1977, India) is a multidisciplinary art practitioner based in the UAE since 2007. A recipient of the prestigious UAE Cultural Golden visa, Mona is a Fashion Designer by training from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi and Istituto Europeo di Design, Milan. Mona draws inspiration from her roots, her childhood memories, folk, and femininity. Nature, both around and within, forms the core of her works. Inspired by her poet father, Mona also expresses her feelings through poetry, often in her mother tongue, Odia, as well as India’s official union language, Hindi.
Nayyab Akram (b. 1992, United Kingdom - Pakistan) is a visual artist whose practice centres on intimate-scale collage made from hundreds of tiny pieces of recycled magazine paper. Working with found imagery, she cuts, sorts and layers fragments by hand to create detailed compositions. Her work explores ordinary moments, overlooked scenes, memory and the human condition. Her current practice also brings together figures, architecture, flora, fauna and subtle symbolic elements. Her work has been exhibited in the UK, Pakistan, Iran and the UAE.
Saira Safwan (b. 1981, Pakistan) is an art educator and research scholar with a background in Fine Arts. She began her academic career as a lecturer at Lahore College for Women University (2004–2009), followed by work as a research assistant on art conservation projects, as well as co-curating exhibitions and contributing exhibition reviews and articles. She later pursued a PhD in Art History at the University of the Punjab on figure painting in Pakistan (1947–2006) but paused its pursuit due to relocation. Now based in Dubai, she continues her creative and academic practice through freelance work and a PGCE qualification.
Sana Waqar Khan (b. 1990, Pakistan) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Dubai, with over ten years of experience spanning textiles, fashion, and visual arts. She holds an MA in Art and Design Studies from Beaconhouse National University and was shortlisted for The Art Circle Award in 2024 and 2025. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Pakistan, the UAE, Iran, and Venice, including at World Art Dubai, Warehouse421, Bassam Freiha Art Foundation, and SIKKA Art & Design Festival 2026. Her practice explores abstraction, mapping, and data visualisation through traditional and digital media. Alongside her artistic practice, she collaborates with leading cultural institutions, including Art Dubai and Jameel Arts Centre, designs and facilitates interactive workshops and learning programmes informed by her MoMA specialisation in 'Teaching with Art'.
Samar Farooq (United Kingdom) is a Dubai-based artist specialising in Islamic calligraphy, with formal training in Almoravid Kufic and Chinese Arabic calligraphy. Her practice explores the meeting point between traditional Islamic art, cultural exchange and contemporary visual expression. She has exhibited her work in London, Manchester and Dubai. She also leads calligraphy programmes, workshops and cultural retreats internationally.
Sara A. Madan (b. 1988, Bahrain) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer whose practice spans mixed media, ceramics, installation, and poetic text. Her work is grounded in lived experience and family memory, often tracing how personal stories carry wider histories of place, care, and belonging.
Shaima Ali AlQassab (b. 1995, United Arab Emirates) is a writer, coach, and researcher whose work moves between narrative and reflection. She writes poetry and fiction exploring memory and identity and is currently developing her first historical fiction novel, exploring themes of memory and culture in the Gulf. Shaima continues her writing practice through The Open Question, a growing publication of poems and reflections. Alongside her creative work, Shaima is a Certified Co-Active Coach. She holds a Master's in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from the University of Wollongong in Dubai.
Shatha Abueljebain (b. 2000, Kuwait) is a self-taught digital artist from Kuwait whose practice is deeply inspired by Kuwaiti and Arab culture, heritage, and identity. Blending cultural references with modern visual storytelling, she creates works that are both personal and reflective of the wider community. Her practice seeks to preserve the essence of cultural memory while presenting it through a distinctive contemporary perspective, creating a visual dialogue between heritage, identity, and the present.
Sorren Caryl Galiza (b. 1980, Philippines) is an optimistic empath with a lifelong romance with words. She brings that same emotional honesty to her art — every piece a true expression of her soul. Sorren has called Dubai home for 18 years.
Tessy Koshy (b. 1980, India) is an independent journalist and editor of Middle East Masala, an online art and culture publication. An avid reader, she is also the creator of Power of Pages Book Club in Dubai, helping readers to heal and grow through the wisdom of motivational books.
Varsha Suresh (b. 1998, India) is a web developer and photographer based in Dubai. The visual work focuses on everyday urban textures, transience and the quiet persistence of daily life across the Gulf. Through candid lens perspectives, routine, movement and public spaces intersecting with collective memory is documented.
Vivienne Mendonca (b. 1975, United Kingdom) is a British writer living in Dubai. She is a former dentist with a Master’s in Public Health. She enjoys travelling, reading, and writing.
Mohamed Bin Hamad (b. 1985, United Arab Emirates) is the founder of @streetsofalain, documenting Al Ain one story at a time.
Melika Shahin (b. 1998, Iran), also known as Melzarts, is a Dubai-raised multidisciplinary artist from Tehran. Having graduated from NYU Abu Dhabi with a full scholarship, she studied Fine Arts and Film in Abu Dhabi, New York, and Paris. Her work includes drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, digital art, animation, and installation. Her practice explores the layered connections between individuals, their environments, and the emotions that bind them. Her work has been in various exhibitions across the UAE, and in publications such as Cosmopolitan Middle East, Gulf News, Khamsah, Magzoid, Al Bayan, Broadway on Demand, NYU, and The National.
R. Tarrannum (b. 1982, India) is an artist inspired by nature and the details of everyday life. She works with acrylics and mixed media. Her paintings explore landscapes, birds, and flowers, with particular attention to light, colour, and composition. Through a combination of observation and visual storytelling, her work reflects the natural world and the moments that capture her attention.
Gaia Getty (b. 2021, Finland - Lebanon) is a preschooler who loves to create art. Her style is abstract, bold, energetic and experimental. In addition to art, she loves playing with her friends, is passionate about animals, loves the beach and swimming, and all things whimsical and magical.
Maya Mahmood Saleh (b. 2017, United Arab Emirates) is a talented young artist who loves drawing and all forms of art. Her artistic journey began when she was just a few months old in the studio of her grandmother, Salma Al Marri. Maya spends her free time making art, reading, caring for her cats, and playing with her siblings. She also enjoys traveling and exploring new experiences.
Taleb Saeed Bin Shaiban (b. 2022, United Arab Emirates) is a talented young boy whose hobbies include drawing, solving puzzles, playing with cars, and practicing parkour. He enjoys playing with his siblings and looks forward to winter, when he can play with his cars and ride his bicycle in the garden.