• Fertile Ground: Rethinking the Art Fair Experience

    Fertile Ground: Rethinking the Art Fair Experience

  • As the global art scene reassesses its structures, galleries are searching for new ways to establish meaning within an increasingly saturated ecosystem. Amid the UAE’s packed November schedule, Tabari Artspace treated its gallery show, fair booth and external activation as interlinked chapters within a single evolving concept. At Abu Dhabi Art 2025, the gallery extended Fertile Dreams from Dubai into a second context, exploring whether an exhibition can move between spaces while sustaining intellectual continuity. In Dubai, the exhibition centred on grounded material practices: fresco, pigment, charcoal and figuration shaped by sensory and bodily registers. At the fair, the enquiry shifted toward geometry, repetition, process and spiritual interpretation. Across both contexts, fertility expanded to broader readings linked to land, renewal, ritual, inherited visual systems and subconscious knowledge, positioning the exhibition as a moving framework rather than a static display.
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    (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
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  • TA: The past year has brought major shifts in the art market. How do you read these changes? MT: The... TA: The past year has brought major shifts in the art market. How do you read these changes? MT: The...

    TA: The past year has brought major shifts in the art market. How do you read these changes?


    MT: The fair circuit has grown rapidly, but depth has not. Visibility is, of course, not guaranteed by volume. Collectors now look for vision and intent; they are more selective. Younger audiences are returning physically, but with new expectations; they’re visually trained, digitally literate, and want intention. Attitudes to fairs have also shifted. They have become sensory destinations as much as cultural ones: places to eat, drink, stroll and socialise, with moments of looking interspersed between everything else. While energy builds around key zones of hype, many visitors are there for the experience as much as the art. In parallel, the appetite for alternative encounters has grown. Private salons, at-home viewings and intimate gatherings have seen a revival, as collectors seek meaningful exchange with artists and gallerists. The desire for connection is apparent, and it changes the way galleries must think. If the fair functions as an entertainment environment, the central challenge becomes: how do you command attention within a space built for distraction? How do you create room for someone to stop, step inside and engage? A booth needs a position, a point of view.

     

    Yet fairs still matter. They remain essential points of contact for meeting new audiences and building relationships. The value is there, but it depends on how ideas are framed and how clearly they are communicated.

  • TA: How does that influence exhibition-making at Tabari Artspace? MT: Our approach is artist-led and grounded in evolving dialogues. We... TA: How does that influence exhibition-making at Tabari Artspace? MT: Our approach is artist-led and grounded in evolving dialogues. We...

    TA: How does that influence exhibition-making at Tabari Artspace?


    MT: Our approach is artist-led and grounded in evolving dialogues. We build exhibitions through sustained interaction with our artists and through consideration of contemporary concerns affecting the region. The aim is to create conditions for thought. Exhibitions must hold narrative structure and offer sensory presence. They work when they invite viewers to enter an idea.

    TA: What issues do you see in the traditional art fair model?


    MT: Saturation is a challenge. When everything competes simultaneously, very little registers. The standardised structure - identical booths, fixed layouts and limited time - compresses the viewing experience and pushes people to skim. The social nature of fairs also shapes behaviour: visitors move, talk, observe quickly and move on. In this environment, attention is a scarce resource. The challenge lies in creating spatial presence. A booth needs to guide a visitor inward and offer a reason to engage. When space is designed with intention, encounters can shift from passing glances to meaningful encounters.

     

     

  • TA: How did Fertile Dreams guide your approach to Abu Dhabi Art?


    MT: In Dubai, the exhibition centres on grounded and sensory materiality. Artists approached figuration and tactility through their own vocabularies, tracing relationships between land, body and cycles of growth. Randa Maddah reflected on life and re-birth; Maitha Abdalla returned to he archetype of the dark forest; Almaha Jaralla looked to her local habitat; and Saj Issa drew from personal mythology. Alymamah Rashed layered fruit and vegetable motifs to establish earthly edens so spirituality could meet soil. Nada Baraka and Pippa El-Kadhi Brown introduced layered dream-like spaces, using pigment and texture to reveal atmosphere and emotional states.

     

    When adapting the exhibition for the fair, the question became how these themes might shift through context. The presentation moved towards abstraction and process, allowing intuition and geometry to come forward as conceptual anchors. Lulwah Al Hamoud explored the interplay between repetition and the divine, while Hashel Al Lamki worked with fluid terrains that drifted to the edge of imagination. Chafa Ghaddar used fresco to capture the transition from day to night, and Nasser Almulhim turned to abstraction and colour as a form of psychological release. Such varied artistic languages rely on curation and context. Just mounting works on walls dissolves their intent. Our task was to build conditions that draw viewers into the thinking behind each practice, letting them converse. Across the two sites, the idea of fertility began to expand, no longer rooted only in the material world but also in ritual, renewal, visual inheritance and subconscious memory. The transition confirmed that exhibitions can travel without losing coherence; movement reveals how ideas stretch, adapt and evolve.
    (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).

  • TA: So the fair functioned as a continuation rather than a separate event?


    MT: Exactly, continuity was the objective. By treating the booth as part of the exhibition’s development, we created a chance to explore one concept across two settings and through two lenses. Figuration and bodily presence in Dubai; abstraction and repetition in Abu Dhabi. Visitors encountered different registers of meaning by moving between locations. The process of movement was part of the curatorial strategy.

     

    TA: What might this imply for future models of participation?


    MT: Engagement must be curatorial as much as commercial. Fair fatigue is real. A booth must provide orientation and offer sensory access points. It should invite time and focus. The format of the isolated white cube is not fixed. In the MENA region, movement between cities and spaces is part of lived experience. Exhibitions can connect those pathways and open dialogue between artists and audiences. The future of fairs will depend on how well they respond to the ways people actually encounter art today: socially, sensorily and spatially. Fertile Dreams presents one possibility. When an exhibition is allowed to move, it can gain momentum, accumulate meaning and sustain conversation across settings. That model points toward a more adaptive approach in which galleries, fairs and temporary spaces are not separate stages but parts of an ongoing curatorial conversation.

  • TA: How do these ideas live on after the fair? MT: The title Fertile Dreams expresses growth and generation. We...

    TA: How do these ideas live on after the fair?


    MT: The title Fertile Dreams expresses growth and generation. We worked with those ideas - seeding, spreading, expanding - and took them as the foundation of our approach, evolving across space. The exhibition will be in motion until Spring 2026, giving the works time to breathe and shift. Over the coming months, artists will respond directly to the space. Some will introduce new pieces, others will extend existing ideas. Chafa Ghaddar is planning a site-specific fresco that will emerge on-site, allowing the exhibition to unfold in real time.

    The intention is to treat Fertile Dreams as a living framework. Ideas will rotate, themes may deepen, and the curatorial narrative will evolve. We’re creating the conditions for ongoing dialogue, the kind that invites attention over time rather than a single encounter. Beyond the visual presentation, we’ll activate the space through intimate gatherings, inviting the community to return and experience the work as it changes. We want to slow down the exhibition format and approach it anew, considering it as a site of artistic development, connection, and fertile ground from which ideas can grow.