In Dubai, where gleaming skyscrapers and manicured boulevards often define the urban landscape, a new exhibition at the Ishara Art Foundation dares to embrace the raw, unpolished pulse of the street. No Trespassing, the foundation’s inaugural summer exhibition, running from July 4 to August 30, 2025, transforms the pristine white cube of the gallery into a dynamic canvas that channels the chaotic, vibrant, and ever-evolving aesthetics of city streets. Curated by Priyanka Mehra, this bold showcase features six UAE-based and South Asian artists—Fatspatrol (Fathima Mohiuddin), H11235 (Kiran Maharjan), Khaled Esguerra, Rami Farook, Salma Dib, and Sara Alahbabi—who engage with the street not merely as a backdrop but as a living medium and subject.

The exhibition resists the temptation to pin down the street’s essence, acknowledging its refusal to be neatly defined. Streets are more than physical spaces; they are tapestries of human experience, woven from the interplay of order and chaos, grit and beauty, spontaneity and structure. The artists capture this fluidity through works that incorporate the ephemera of urban life—signposts, pavements, building materials, street art, and human traces. These elements, often overlooked, become inscriptions of a city’s movement, its constant cycle of deconstruction and reinvention. As Mehra, the Exhibitions Manager and Programmes Curator at Ishara, notes, the street is both shaped by and shapes those who traverse it, a reciprocal dialogue that No Trespassing brings to the fore.

What sets this exhibition apart is its exploration of art’s relationship with the street through on-site interventions. The participating artists “tag” the gallery’s walls and floors, much like street artists mark urban surfaces, challenging the notion that institutionalized art holds greater cultural weight. This act of claiming space within the formal confines of the Ishara Art Foundation blurs the line between the street and the gallery, inviting viewers to reconsider the hierarchies that govern artistic expression. Works like Fatspatrol’s The World Out There (2025) exemplify this approach, transforming the gallery into a site of urban dialogue.

Mehra, whose curatorial vision is informed by her extensive background in design and urban art, brings a unique perspective to No Trespassing. Having worked on public art commissions at Yas Bay in Abu Dhabi, urban regeneration programs in India, and public art masterplans in Saudi Arabia, she has a deep understanding of how art can activate and redefine public spaces. Her experience as project director for the globally renowned site-specific artist Daku and her involvement in large-scale urban art festivals like St+art Delhi underscore her ability to bridge the raw energy of the street with the structured world of institutional art.

Supported generously by reframe, No Trespassing does more than display art; it invites audiences to engage in a conversation about the spaces we inhabit and the marks we leave behind. By bringing the street into the gallery, the exhibition challenges us to see the urban environment not as a mere setting but as a collaborator in the creative process. In doing so, it reimagines how we navigate and claim ownership of the world around us, one tag at a time.

Photo credits: Ishara Art Foundation. 

Oksana Bozhko

Oksana Bozhko is a Contributor to Dubai Voice.