Today's Edition
SARA ALZAABI (ABU DHABI)
The exhibition “Skin of Dreams” at the Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi presents a comprehensive view of Shezad Dawood’s interdisciplinary work, marking the British visual artist’s first mid-career retrospective spanning more than 15 years.
Curated by Jessica Cerasi, the exhibition, which runs until September 20, unfolds in two phases, with the second phase offering a presentation of Dawood’s work following the initial launch on April 9.
Organised by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, the exhibition brings together painting, sculpture, digital media and virtual reality to explore themes of architecture, ecology and alternative futures, while maintaining a strong dialogue with the Cultural Foundation’s architectural space through the integration of light, form and spatial design.
The title “Skin of Dreams” itself refers to the cinema screen as a boundary between imagination and reality, a theme that runs throughout the exhibition as Dawood moves fluidly between physical and digital worlds.
Across the exhibition, Dawood’s works reflect a deeply interconnected practice. His early textile-based paintings, including Flow My Tears The Policeman Said II (2011) and Cave Interior (2016), drawn on Pakistani ralli textiles to explore memory, identity and cultural continuity, while “Island I” (2011) investigates perception through layered imagery.
His openers such as Through Pierced Flesh and Skin of Dreams (2014) and The Wanderer (2015), focus on the relationship between the body, movement and spatial experience.
This engagement expands into architectural explorations in works like When Louis met Ahmed and Kenzo Rides Again (2023), Anselm Chapel, Tokyo (2016), and Okpo Shipyard” (2018), alongside University of NonDualism (2020), Solids and Voids (2020), Situated Architecture (2020), and Biosphere (1980) (2023), which examine the interaction between space, philosophy and built environments.
His more recent installations, including Night in the Garden of Love (2023) and Night in the Garden of Love (Digital Seedbanks) (2023), extend this approach into multisensory environments that combine artificial intelligence, sound and scent to reflect on biodiversity and evolving ecosystems, accompanied by related works such as Tree of Many Colours (2023), Blue (2023), Osteospermum (2023), and Ambiguous Relationships (2023).
Digital works like Encroachments (2019) and Clifton Beach (Digital terrazzo) [Black] (2019) explore cultural identity and geopolitical narratives, while recent paintings, including For Minnette (Green) (2026) and For Minnette (Turquoise) (2026) return to more personal expressions of memory and emotion.
At the centre of the exhibition, Leviathan Cycle brings these threads together, imagining future worlds shaped by climate change, artificial intelligence and scientific transformation, ultimately positioning Dawood’s work as a space where history, culture and speculative futures continuously intersect.
In an interview with Aletihad, Dawood spoke about his collaboration with the Cultural Foundation, describing it as deeply personal, saying: “This is a very special collaboration for me… the UAE is like a home away from home.”
For Dawood, the venue itself was central to the project, explaining: “It is one of my favourite buildings; it is really used by the community of Abu Dhabi… and for me, that is really important,” highlighting both its social role and its unique architectural identity.
This connection shaped the exhibition “Skin of Dreams”, which he conceived as a dialogue between his work and the building, describing it as an approach that led to an ambitious, immersive design in which structure, colour and space become part of the artwork itself.
He emphasised that “the exhibition design was already one layer of the exhibition”, with elements such as walls, suspended works and architectural interventions interacting with the building’s geometry, from floor patterns to ceiling lights.
This layered approach reflects his broader artistic concerns, particularly his fascination with the relationship between nature and technology.
“I am very interested in where nature, pattern and technology also meet,” he said, linking traditional textile weaving to digital systems and describing it as “like a proto computer… ones and zeros, it is binary code”.
The title itself carries layered meanings, with Dawood explaining that it reflects both the physical “skin” of the building and the more poetic dimension of the work, where “dreams… come from something in the heart”.
Dawood described the exhibition as an experience rather than a static display: “I like to take people on a walk… you are inviting them to go on a walk with you”, he says of the presentation, which unfolds across the building to encourage movement and interaction, while exploring themes of architecture and nature through digital, sensory and geometric works.
At its core, it invites active engagement, an experience that is constantly shifting. “Wherever you look at it from, it will do something different,” he said.
Looking ahead, Dawood said, “I would love people to fall in love with the Cultural Foundation all over again”, describing the exhibition as a “gateway to the imagination”, where audiences can explore layered experiences from virtual reality to sound, scent and visual art.
