Bored? What if the muse you’ve been chasing, or the answer to your ennui, lies in the Al Quoz industrial area of Dubai?It’s where you’ll find the city’s vibrant art district, Alserkal Avenue, and it’s where you’ll experience Alserkal Art Month, which is happening right now.What is Alserkal Art Month?The Alserkal Art Month 2026 is fully underway, with new gallery exhibitions, public art shows, space takeovers, open studios, performances, reading groups and lots more. Although the event usually appears as an annual Art Week, this year offers an extended line-up.The event is running from April 18 to May 18 – a month-long celebration of art, spread across five weekends.The organisation’s website says the extension is because “challenging times require challenging programmes”, which is why Art Month is putting the spotlight on the wider artistic community.The timing was also influenced by the rescheduling of Art Dubai 2026 from April to May, following regional disruptions. Alserkal Avenue used the overlap to extend programming across five weeks and align its closing events with Art Dubai’s 20th edition, allowing for collaborative commissions, screenings, talks, and public programmes.Will it continue as a monthly event?Alserkal Avenue has not formally confirmed whether it will continue its month-long format next year. However, it is moving toward more consistent, expanded, and year-round cultural programming rather than limiting activity to a single concentrated week. The 2026 edition reflects a broader long-term shift toward sustained public programming, deeper community engagement, and a more expansive cultural calendar.Where is Alserkal Avenue?Alserkal Avenue is located in the Al Quoz industrial area of Dubai. The Avenue is served by three entrances – on 17th Street, 6A Street and First Al Khail Street in Al Quoz 1. The area is a pedestrian-only zone every weekday from 7pm onwards, and all day on weekends.The Avenue is also pet-friendly, but pet policies vary across different spaces, so it’s recommended to check beforehand, especially if you’d like to tour an exhibition.What else can we do there?Beyond visual art, visitors can expect independent cinemas, live performances, talks, workshops, literary events, concept stores, cafés, wellness studios, and creative pop ups spread across the industrial warehouse spaces of Al Quoz.The Avenue is home to institutions such as Cinema Akil, the UAE’s first independent cinema, alongside design studios, fashion concepts, artisanal cafés, and performance venues that regularly host concerts, poetry readings, movement workshops, and interdisciplinary cultural programming.The district also places strong emphasis on public engagement and accessibility. Many programmes are community driven and designed to encourage interaction rather than passive viewing, including family activities, guided art walks, open studios, wellness experiences, and educational initiatives for children and young creatives.Food is also a big part of the experience, during Alserkal Art Month. Visitors can spend an entire day exploring specialty cafés, homegrown restaurants, bookstores, creative retail spaces, and seasonal markets. How much is the cost of entry?Here’s the best part – programs are free to attend! You will need to register before coming, however, through Alserkal Art Month’s website: alserkalartmonth.online.What’s on right now?The main event, Déjà vu, is ending today, so don’t miss it! Here are all the programmes running this weekend.Déjà vuYou’ve been here before… or have you? Déjà vu is a multi-gallery exhibition that opened last weekend, featuring over 50 artists, represented by 20 of the UAE’s leading contemporary art galleries. The exhibition explores the inanity of repeated cycles – from the feeling of surrealism we experience in the moment of déjà vu, to language slippage, where the intended use of words, signs and symbols comes into question. There’s also the theme of historical absurdity, which explores Karl Marx’s classical assertion in 1852, when he said history repeats itself “first as tragedy, second as farce”.When: April 25 to May 8, 10am to 10pmWhere: Concrete, Alserkal AvenueCost: The exhibition tour is free, but requires prior registration.Slow Art Walk with Camilla SinghFollow a story situated within our entanglement with plants, fungi, and systems of homeostasis. It traces patterns of intelligence and adaptation across species, and you’ll that meaning is not fixed but continuously negotiated through feedback, friction and flow. This art walk is curated by Camilla Singh, an artist, curator and cultural strategist with 20 years of experience. Her current studio work is being developed as a comic book series, with adaptations across gaming, sculpture, performance and augmented reality.When: May 9, 4pm to 5pmWhere: The Yard, Alserkal AvenueCost: Free, but pre-registration on the website is required.From Fences to FaçadeFrom construction hoardings to building facades, Emirati designer and photographer Hussain AlMoosawi reflects on a visual language that shaped his practice and ongoing engagement with multiple urban landscapes. Through a show-and-tell followed by a conversation, the talk traces connections between overlooked structures, repetition, and image-making — opening a broader conversation around photography as research and artistic inquiry.When: May 9, 5pm to 6pmWhere: Alserkal Arts FoundationCost: Free, but pre-registration on the website is required.Slow Art Walk: Between Grids/The UnfoldingThis walk begins not with a work of art, but with the act of noticing how the Avenue itself becomes artwork. Viewers move away from the ‘white cube’ of the Avenue, and into the lanes, spotting the invisible lines of the systems and pathways followed without question, and the rhythms that guide people through built spaces. This art walk is curated by Priyanka Mehta, a curator whose practice explores site-specificity and the street as both medium and subject.When: May 9, 6pm to 7pmWhere: The Yard, Alserkal AvenueCost: Free, but pre-registration on the website is required.Nam June Paik: Moon Is The Oldest TVHe was called ‘the George Washington of video art’, but who really was Nam June Paik, a pillar of the American avant-garde movement in the 20th century, and arguably the most famous Korean artist in modern history? Director Amanda Kim tells, for the first time, the story of Paik’s meteoric rise in the New York art scene, and his artistic evolution. The programme features an extensive archive of performance footage, original interviews from Paik’s contemporaries and collaborators, and a voiceover narration of Nam June Paik’s writings.When: May 9, 7pm to 8.30pmWhere: The Yard, Alserkal AvenueCost: Free, but pre-registration on the website is required.Create your own: Split Spin Animal PuppetsThis is one for kids aged 4 to 10 years! Create your own moving animal puppets, with Medaf Creative Studio + Art Spaces. Participants will colour pre-cut paper animal pieces using markers, explore patterns and textures, then assemble the parts with split pins to create jointed puppets. A fun hands-on activity that encourages creativity, storytelling, and imaginative play.When: May 10, 11am to 12pmWhere: Project Space, Alserkal AvenueCost: Free, but pre-registration on the website is required.Here and ElsewhereAs the ‘here’ is reshaped by ongoing upheaval, the ‘elsewhere’ becomes crucial, even if it’s at times unreachable or distant. The Here and Elsewhere exhibition brings together a selection of texts and images that move through poetry, drawing, writing, and speculative gestures. It includes works by artists Omar Berrada, Ibrahim Nehme, Bell Hooks, Michael Taussig and others. The programme shares an insistence on vocalising, on bearing witness, while tracing ways to resist and reimagine.When: May 10, 5pm to 6.30pmWhere: Common Room, WH51, Alserkal AvenueCost: Free, but pre-registration on the website is required.Music: An evening with NOONBe prepared for more than just a performance. This session, featuring Ratish Chadha (drums/percussion), Hosny (oud/vocals), and Steven Bedford (bass/electronics) opens up a conversation around what it really takes for independent artists from the region to break into major music cities around the world. NOON will share their own experiences, while also giving a glimpse into their second studio album.When: May 10, 7pm to 8pmWhere: Project Space, Alserkal AvenueCost: Free, but pre-registration on the website is required.New exhibitions and events are announced every Monday, and you can find them on Alserkal Avenue’s social media channels.
