Manar Abu Dhabi: a dance between light and nature

The second edition of the public art exhibition titled 'Suhail Is Your Guide' runs until 4 January, with pop-ups sprouting in Al Ain for the first time

CULTURE AND TOURISM ABU DHABI

RAFAEL LOZANO-HEMMER Pulse Canopy, 2025

Manar Abu Dhabi: a dance between light and nature

Abeer Younis

last update on 29 Dec 2025

Just as the moon and stars have guided sailors and those journeying through the desert, light has served as a guiding force throughout history. It is from this idea that the second edition of Manar Abu Dhabi, a public art exhibition running until 4 January, is being held under the title Suhail Is Your Guide. Suhail is the second-brightest star in the night sky.

The works on display explore the profound dimensions of light, as stillness and a pure mirror of collective memory. As the exhibition’s supervisor and artistic director, Japanese artist Khai Hori, explains: “In Abu Dhabi, the artworks explore how artists interpret the sea, light, and natural elements, offering distinct visual and sensory experiences.”

According to Hori, Manar Abu Dhabi has the potential to foreground significant natural and cultural environments across the emirate. “Mangroves, oases, heritage sites, and urban environments are not merely backdrops for the exhibition; they are integral to its structure,” he says. “Under the theme Suhail Is Your Guide, we designed the exhibition as an enjoyable journey, in which visitors move through a carefully curated course that connects artworks, architecture, and the natural environment in an integrated reading.”

For the first time, Manar Abu Dhabi has taken its art to Al Ain, with works installed in Al Qattara and Al Jimi Oasis. These sites, Hori notes, reflect a rich history and the deep interconnectedness between humans, water, light, and earth. “Some families also allowed us to install works in their backyards, offering the public a rare opportunity to discover artworks and domestic architectures that carry layered memories.”

CULTURE AND TOURISM ABU DHABI — MAITHA HAMDAN, 'Breath of the Same Place,' 2025.

Light, place, and precision

At the curatorial level, decisions regarding the representation and distribution of works were made with great precision. The team closely examined how Emirati artists interact with their international counterparts, considering location, material, rhythm, and visual proximity. “Principles of balance and non-interference guided us,” explains Hori, “ensuring that the works are respectfully situated within heritage sites and natural environments without harming or dominating them to guarantee their sustainability.”

The selection of Jubail Island and Souq Al Mina for site-specific installations reflects the city’s coastal identity and the evolution of its urban fabric. The artworks there explore how artists interpret the sea, light, and natural elements, offering immersive visual and sensory experiences. Some works evolve, such as Shaikha Al Mazrou’s The Contingent Object, in which salt crystals gradually form, intensifying the red hues, particularly under the light of the full moon. Elsewhere, 2,000 drones soar over the mangrove forests for 10 minutes—a nightly spectacle that continues to draw large audiences.

“Light is a universal element that touches the depths of human consciousness,” says Hori, reflecting on the growing prominence of light-based art. “In the UAE in particular, it carries additional cultural and emotional significance. The word ‘light’ recurs in everyday names and expressions, reflecting its connection to identity, direction, and memory. Historically, light guided travellers, and today it continues to shape how people perceive place and presence.”

“Globally, light exhibitions have gained popularity because they are immediate and easy to engage with,” he adds. “However, Manar Abu Dhabi goes further by presenting works outdoors and within inhabited, familiar, and culturally significant environments. This approach allows for an intimate, one-to-one encounter with each artwork, deepening the relationship between art, place, and viewer.”

Lights that invite contemplation

The exhibition brings together 15 artists and collectives from 10 countries, presenting 22 innovative works realised through advances in contemporary science. Software, research-based practices, and interactive systems transform light into experiences of touch, movement, and sound. While the works differ in form and approach, they share light as a central theme. The artists employ a wide range of tools—including suspended lasers, reflective surfaces, and salt fields—articulated through a unified visual language that invites reflection on the most recent developments within this artistic tradition.

Each work is underpinned by a conceptual framework activated through modern technology; none appears without a title or contextual explanation, guiding viewers toward informed engagement and interaction.

German artist Christian Brinkmann’s Floral Resonance places the visitor at the centre of an interactive audiovisual installation. “The work captures the living relationship between humans and plants,” he explains. “A real plant encounters a light screen, and the plant is equipped with sensors that respond to touch, translating every electrical signal into light, sound, and image in real time. The scene is never repeated twice.”

The plant is not merely an object to be observed, but a partner in the artistic performance, adds Brinkmann. “The visual elements are generated from three-dimensional scans of living plants, preserving the finest details of texture, colour, and branching within a digital space,” he says. “Transformation begins as the leaves ‘breathe’ and the veins appear to transmit light.” Abstract compositions unfold across the screen, drawing their forms and colours from flowers that disperse and dissolve into the digital field. The work invites visitors to experience how technology listens to and responds to nature through the simple act of touch.

The relationship between movement and belonging returns in the form of the circle, recalling the rotation of celestial bodies and the constant rhythm of time

Emirati artist Ammar Al Attar

American artist Christine Berg offers a contrasting perspective in Compound Eye, which invites contemplation through mirrored forms. Speaking to Al Majalla, she explains: "The work combines the act of seeing with that of being seen. When visitors stand before reflective lenses shaped like eyes, they find themselves at the centre of each mirror. With every movement, reflections overlap and intertwine, forming a collective image in which individuals intersect. As bodies pass, the images within the lenses shift in a continuous cycle of transformation."

"The work turns the eye into a tool for meditation, making the self both the subject and object of vision," adds Berg. "Perception unfolds here simultaneously on individual and collective levels, between interior and exterior, generating a subtle relationship among viewers." It is a work that gathers mirrors and images only to rerelease them, allowing the observer to become a presence that summons another presence, meeting at a point that resists closure.

Search around time

In Skyward, Argentine artist Ezequiel Pini, known as Six N. Five, presents a light installation composed of a reflective sloping surface and a carved stone, nestled among mangroves. The mirror reflects the surrounding landscape and sky, anchoring the work within its natural setting. An interactive system responds to the presence of visitors by revealing moving planets of light that do not appear all at once, but gradually unfold, slowly forming as if pulsing in response to the viewer's attention.

As the artist explains, the work emerges "from a continuous inquiry into time, perception, and the boundaries between reality and imagination. It calls for stillness rather than movement, transforming light from a purely visual phenomenon into memory, rhythm, and a quiet harmony with place, where presence itself becomes a moment of contemplation."

American artist Lachlan Turczan takes a different approach, using light as a painterly medium. With Veil I, illuminated lines stretch into layered fields of light before slowly dissolving and fading away. The work draws on the memory of light in the lives of travellers across the Gulf, translating it into a vivid, unfolding experience before the viewer's eyes. Here, programmed lasers chart ephemeral visual paths that open new spaces of perception. The curtain of light intersects with the sands and night sky of Jubail Island, creating a mirage that shifts with the movement of the air.

"From a single laser beam," Turczan explains, "a curtain of light is generated, its colours dispersing and re-converging, while the edges glow with faint spectra, making the earth appear like a glass prism that absorbs light and redistributes it to the sky, rendering the scene almost imaginary."

In Cycle of Circles, Emirati artist Ammar Al Attar presents a photographic series consisting of five large-scale images displayed sequentially in illuminated light boxes. Each photograph was taken while the artist rode his bicycle along a circular path, turning the repetition of a simple act into a meditative practice and opening a continuous dialogue between body, space, and time.

Reflecting on the work, Attar tells Al Majalla: "The relationship between movement and belonging to place returns in the form of the circle, like a wave, recalling the rotation of celestial bodies and the continuous rhythm of time. Within the structure that contains the work, this rhythm finds its echo, allowing the eye to settle into quiet contemplation."

A living chamber of light

Not all of the works at Manar Abu Dhabi were conceived individually. Some emerged through collective practice, such as Alcove Ltd by the Swiss-based Encor Studio. This immersive installation transforms perception into a multi-sensory experience in which light, sound, and reflection converge.

The work unfolds inside a six-metre-long recycled metal container, the walls of which are fitted with liquid crystal-laminated glass, turning the structure into a pulsating chamber of light that synchronises with visitors' voices. Intermittent fog drifts through the space, softening edges and intensifying the sense of spatial depth.

Sensors track visitors' movements, translating their presence into shifting sequences of light and sound. Each passage through the space leaves a unique, unrepeatable imprint, dissolving the boundary between observer and artwork.

Within this container, a dialogue unfolds between isolation and exposure, interior and exterior. By fusing light and sound with human presence, Alcove Ltd transforms a static structure into a responsive, living environment, one that each new visitor continually reshapes.

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