The new museums, cultural districts, and citywide events are part of Abu Dhabi’s strategic long-term investment to bolster its cultural offerings. In 2021, Abu Dhabi announced a five-year $6 billion plan for its culture and creative sector, building on the prior investment of $2.3 billion, to make culture a major economic driver for growth in the emirate.

Opening night of Abu Dhabi Art. (Image courtesy of Sutton)

“Economic exchange brings about cultural exchange, the exchange of ideas,” said Dyala Nusseibeh, director of Abu Dhabi Art Fair. She noted how the fair is “a marketplace but also a space where ideas are exchanged, discussed, and thought about.” For over a decade, Nusseibeh emphasized, curators and researchers at institutions such as the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (due to open in 2026) and the Louvre Abu Dhabi have been researching the art histories of the Gulf. “Collectively, we’re all working toward the growth and centering of Abu Dhabi as a cultural hub,” added Nusseibeh. “And at the same time, all of this has come about because of the government’s decision quite a long time ago to invest seriously in culture and think about culture as essential for the future growth of the country.”

This cultural vision is spearheaded by Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, the chair of the Department of Culture and Tourism. He has said that culture is an engine that not only offers an expression of identity but also fuels economic growth, innovation, job creation, and sustainable development and contributes to Abu Dhabi’s aggressive goal to diversify its economy away from oil.

The growth of Abu Dhabi’s cultural ecosystem is taking place alongside the city’s rise as a global financial hub. Abu Dhabi Finance Week, which held its fourth annual summit from December 8-11, was dubbed by some as the “real ‘Davos in the Desert’” as Indian-born strategy advisor and author Parag Khanna stated. In recent years, Abu Dhabi has attracted to its financial hub, Abu Dhabi Global Market, many of the world’s biggest financial firms and thousands of professionals, including BlackRock, Rothschild & Co, Bitcoin Suisse, and Millenium Management. In early December, Mubadala Investment Company and Aldar, the emirate’s largest developer, announced a landmark $16.3 billion expansion of Abu Dhabi’s Al Maryah Island financial district.

“I believe that our government in Abu Dhabi is continuing to make sound decisions in their approach to art and culture,” said Maryam Al Falasi, an Emirati Abu Dhabi-based art dealer who opened her gallery within the Madar_39 creative hub in the Mina Zayed cultural neighborhood in November 2024. “They have been consistently investing in the ecosystem, which has contributed to this rise, because a true cultural city needs a number of factors to succeed. It’s not enough to have collectors or galleries or institutions, but it needs to have all of these to form a true ecosystem.”

The Zayed National Museum was the fifth new museum, and undoubtedly the most monumental, to open in Abu Dhabi in 2025, signifying the city’s evolving role as a regional and global capital for culture. In April, teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi, developed in collaboration with Tokyo-based art collective teamLab, began offering its immersive digital art experience to visitors to the UAE capital. Also located in Saadiyat Cultural District, it joined the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which opened in 2017 and Manarat Al Saadiyat, a dynamic arts and culture center. Also in April, the restored Al Maqtaa Fort, now renamed the Al Maqtaa Museum, opened, offering insights into Abu Dhabi’s early years as a trading post and border checkpoint. In October, the Al Ain Museum, the country’s oldest museum, first opened in 1971, reopened after a major restoration, including new exhibition spaces to showcase the region’s ancient desert settlements and early Bedouin life alongside displays on the legacy of the UAE’s founder, who was born in Al Ain. A few weeks prior to the Zayed National Museum opening, the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi opened its doors. It is the largest institution of its kind in the region and showcases 13.8 billion years of natural history in the region.

“It’s not just about thinking critically about our national identity, but it’s about bringing those perspectives to bear on global conversations,” Nusseibeh highlighted. “That’s also the role that culture has in ensuring that the region is talking about itself from the region and that you’re not relying on people from outside who haven’t spent serious amounts of time in the region to describe it or to frame it or narrate it. In fact, you have artists from the region who are doing that critical work directly, and this is important.”

Abu Dhabi’s numerous museum openings have brought the UAE capital much regional and international attention. This has been bolstered by the recent announcement that leading global contemporary art fair group Frieze will transform the existing Abu Dhabi Art Fair into Frieze Abu Dhabi in November 2026. Each year Abu Dhabi’s state-led cultural programming has become more robust and extensive. In 2024, the first Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial, with local, Middle Eastern, and international commissioned works of art displayed at various locations throughout the city, transformed Abu Dhabi into a citywide outdoor art gallery. In November, the second Manar Abu Dhabi opened. The light art festival presents works by local Emirati artists, such as Shaikha Al Mazrou, known for her sculptural abstract works, alongside the vibrant Pop Art works of globally renowned American artist KAWS.

“Contingent Object,” 2025 by Shaikha Al Mazrou, Manar Abu Dhabi 2025. (Image courtesy of Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi & Public Art Abu Dhabi. Photo by Lance Gerber.)

Reem Fadda, a renowned curator and art historian and now the director of Abu Dhabi Culture Programming called this moment in Abu Dhabi’s history “a homecoming.” She said, “It’s been years in the making,” emphasizing her involvement since 2009 with the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. “I am very aware of the seriousness, the efforts, the depth of how much institutional foundational work has been put through in Abu Dhabi to make this happen and to arrive at this moment. I think the world has not paid enough attention, but now we’re getting full lights on all the aspects.”

Fadda has been involved in creating a strategy for public art in the capital. Alongside the museums and institutions, events such as the Public Art Biennial and Manar Abu Dhabi seek to create, as she says, “historic moments of art that people can engage with and remember, and it becomes part of the city’s experience and fabric.”

The Saadiyat Cultural District is nearing its completion. When finished, it will be home to seven museums and cultural institutions, promoting interfaith dialogue, through the Abrahamic Center, and cultural exchange.

Not so far away in the heart of Abu Dhabi’s historic port of Mina Zayed another cultural district is also rapidly taking shape. Established amid Mina Zayed’s other attractions, such as the bustling Madinat Zayed Gold Center, the MiZa cultural district is becoming a host for private cultural entities. 421 Arts Campus, a multifunctional arts center dedicated to emerging artists in the UAE, is also located here. Comprising exhibition spaces, studios, and workshops, and supported and operated by the Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, 421 Arts Campus celebrated its 10th anniversary in November. Serving as a catalyst for creative practitioners in the UAE, South Asia, and North Africa, according to the organization, it has supported over 1,500 creative practitioners, delivered 2,000 programs from residencies to grants, exhibitions, and public programs, and commissioned hundreds of new works.

“When we first opened 10 years ago, we were alone here in Mina Zayed alongside maybe two or three other places you could visit to get an understanding of what’s happening in the city,” said 421 Arts Campus Director Faisal Al Hassan. “Today it’s overwhelming to see what’s happening. The accelerated growth over the past 10 years is exceptional and not necessarily just in visual arts. You are seeing a lot of commitment toward design, performance, music, other creative disciplines – means of focusing on the creative economy in general, and that is where you can really see a shift and a change in the thinking of how we bring in more creative voices into the city.”

421 Arts Campus is presenting “Rays, Ripples, Residue,” an exhibition running until April 26, 2026. It showcases multidisciplinary works of art by artists from and based in the UAE to reflect the evolution of creative practice and exhibition in the Gulf state over the past 10 years.

“The government has also been investing in their own corporate collections and supporting local artists in this manner,” Falasi, who works with several government entities on growing their corporate collections, noted. Mubadala Investment Company is also establishing its Mubadala Corporate Collections – another sign of the support corporate entities are giving art in the UAE capital.

Some critics have mused over the still small pool of private collectors. But as Nusseibeh and others have noted, that is changing with the influx of new residents and new wealth to the capital. In June, data from the Statistics Center in Abu Dhabi indicated that the city’s population crossed four million for the first time after a 7.5% surge in 2024, meaning that the emirate’s population has increased by over 50% in the last decade.

“It’s up to us as gallerists and art dealers to also build on this momentum and play our part in contributing toward this rise,” Falasi said. “This will also contribute to a growing scene through a rise in audiences, and this synergistic approach will bolster Abu Dhabi as a true cultural city.”

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This apparent retreat has sparked predictable reactions. Critics see vindication for their skepticism, citing the project’s immense cost, technical improbabilities, and utopian detachment from reality. A recent Financial Times investigation detailing floating marinas, suspended stadiums, and the sheer impossibility of building a 105-mile mirrored city has reignited the charge of folly. Yet such judgments miss the deeper significance of The Line and what it began.

The Line was never merely a construction project; it was a statement of intent. Emerging from the earliest years of Saudi Vision 2030, it sought to announce that Saudi Arabia’s future would be measured not only in barrels of oil but in ideas. Its architectural audacity – the notion that 9 million people could live in a zero-carbon vertical corridor through the desert – was inseparable from a wider cultural awakening. It invited the world to see the kingdom not as a latecomer to modernity but as a laboratory for reimagining it.

There was, of course, a deliberate element of spectacle to command attention. It inserted Saudi Arabia into a global dialogue about the future of urban life – about density, sustainability, and the relationship between humans and their environment. It forced a discussion around whether a new model of urbanism could emerge from one of the world’s harshest climates, where conventional notions of mobility and comfort no longer applied.

Yet the tension between utopia and reality was present from the start. To live in The Line was to inhabit a diagram – a place of perfect geometry but uncertain humanity. Without streets, plazas, and other informal spaces where life unfolds, could it ever become a true city? Its mirrored surfaces promised a world of reflection but risked a world without depth. The city as machine, however efficient, could never replace the city as organism.

The project’s contraction may therefore arguably represent not failure but evolution. Grand visions rarely survive their first encounter with reality intact. Modernist architects developed masterplans for the capital of Brazil, Brasília; Chandigarh, the capital of the northern Indian state of Punjab; and even Dubai – the earliest masterplans for all these cities began as abstractions that had to yield to the pragmatic demands of daily life. Saudi Arabia is now undergoing a similar reckoning – not with its aspirations but with their scale. By paring back The Line, the kingdom may be rediscovering the human dimension of its own modernity.

This shift reflects a larger maturation within Vision 2030. The early years were defined by monumental gestures – new cities, megaprojects, gigaplans. They were necessary to break the decades of inertia and announce that change was irreversible. But as the transformation takes root, the emphasis has begun to move toward livability, inclusion, and continuity. Across Riyadh, programs of “humanization” are introducing shaded walkways, public parks, and urban greenery. In Al-Ula and Diriyah heritage is being reinterpreted not as nostalgia but as a living urban fabric. These initiatives embody, in quieter form, the very ideals that The Line once dramatized: sustainability, integration, and the balance between progress and tradition.

Critics might still ask whether the vast sums invested in The Line – estimated at tens of billions of dollars – could have been better spent on social housing, education, or public infrastructure. It is a fair question, but it assumes that imagination and practicality are mutually exclusive. Ambition is itself a social resource. The energy that The Line unleashed – among architects, planners, and young Saudis who, for the first time, saw their country at the forefront of innovation – cannot be measured in financial return alone. The project demonstrated that Saudi Arabia was willing to experiment, take risks, and confront global challenges not with hesitation but with vision.

Indeed, some of The Line’s most important legacies are invisible: the research into renewable energy systems, modular construction, and digital design; the cross-pollination of ideas among local and international experts; and the cultivation of a generation of Saudi professionals who have now worked on one of the most complex urban experiments in history. These capacities will endure long after the last mirror panel is installed.

The more pressing question is what comes next. If The Line represented the kingdom’s leap into the future, its scaling back could signal a pivot toward grounded modernity – urbanism that is socially responsible, environmentally sensitive, and culturally resonant. The lesson is not to abandon boldness but to align it with the everyday realities of Saudi life: the need for affordable homes, equitable access, and cities that nurture community as much as they showcase innovation.

In this light, The Line was not a mistake but a constructive exaggeration – a provocation that stretched the boundaries of the possible so that the plausible might emerge. Every utopia performs this function. By imagining a world that cannot exist, it reveals what must change in the one that does. If the project helped shift the kingdom’s urban imagination from the static sprawl of the 20th century toward denser, more sustainable models, then its purpose has already been fulfilled.

Perhaps it is fitting that the story of The Line ends not with collapse but with reflection – on the meaning of ambition, limits of technology, and enduring power of dreams. Saudi Arabia’s transformation has never been linear; it moves by leaps and recalibrations, by trial and adaptation. What remains constant is the determination to redefine what an Arab city can be in the 21st century.

The mirrored wall across the desert may never stretch to the horizon, but its idea will continue to resonate – in Riyadh’s parks, Al-Ula’s restored landscapes, and the small-scale experiments that privilege people over spectacle. The end of The Line is, in that sense, not an ending at all. It is an inflection point – a moment when vision meets humility, and when the pursuit of the extraordinary begins to give shape to the possible. And as a Riyadh-based urban planning expert said about The Line: “I think as a thought experiment, great. But don’t build thought experiments.”

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The program included a live performance of “A Safe Person to Approach” by Ebtisam Abdulaziz and was followed by a reception and a tour of the exhibit.

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The opening plenary featuring the ministers of culture, economy and planning, and investment presented a unified vision of culture as a driver of prosperity, emphasizing its importance across sectors and pledging to triple its size in the national economy. In his opening remarks before more than 1,500 Saudi and international cultural and investment leaders, Minister of Culture Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud noted that the Saudi government has spent more than $21.6 billion on cultural infrastructure since 2016: a remarkable sum in an annual budget approaching $350 billion. In comparison, U.S. federal, state, and local governments combined spend a similar sum of $2.28 billion annually, with a modest $207 million appropriated to the National Endowment for the Arts.

The conference demonstrates the intent of the Saudi government to accelerate this focus on the arts, expanding its global profile. It attracted heavy hitters in the international arts sphere, including culture ministers, the chief executives of Art Basel, Sotheby’s, and Sony Pictures, and the president of the Pinault Collection. New investment funds were announced in the film sector, in partnership with BSF Capital, and fashion, with Merak Capital. Colnaghi, the world’s oldest private gallery, announced it will be opening a space in Riyadh – one of only four outposts for the London-based dealership and its first outside the West.

What explains the emphasis on culture in Saudi diversification plans? How does this mode of diversification translate into Saudi Arabia’s soft power? And who are the new cultural elites embodying this change?

Cultural Innovation as “The New Oil”

At the conference, Saudi officials presented the arts and creative fields as propelling a fundamental shift in the Saudi economy, from one based in resource extraction to one based on knowledge creation. The plenary panel of the conference claimed: “Cultural innovation is the new oil.” Reckoning with this argument requires recognizing the enormity of the change demanded. The limitations of decades under a welfare state built on oil and a public life defined within the narrow confines of a powerful, yet restrictive, religious authority left the public support for and presence of art and entertainment notably underdeveloped. As admitted by Minister of Investment Khaled al-Falih, “We never thought of culture as a sector let alone investing in it.” This meant a focus on culture and entertainment under King Salman bin Abdulaziz’s reign provided early momentum for diversification, as these fields were easy – from an economic perspective – to unlock. Saudi leaders also see the emphasis on creativity as supporting entry into the most future-oriented sectors of the global economy, particularly in technology.

The appetite among Saudi urban youth to participate in the creative and entertainment fields is evident in the YouTube collectives of sketch comedians, private art salons and galleries, and Instagram designers that were included in a survey by the state after the launch of Vision 2030. Yet much as in the oil economy, Saudi officials believe the state has the dominant role to play in establishing this new cultural marketplace. Today culture is embedded within the state’s domestic and global growth strategies, spearheaded by companies spun from the Public Investment Fund, and promoted within gigaprojects, such as the heritage sites in Diriyah and Al-Ula and the sports and entertainment district, Qiddiya. Investments are coordinated with the new Ministry of Culture established in 2018.

As an investment conference, then, the two-day program was dominated by discussions on the mechanics of art markets and promotion of cultural innovation. There was an emphasis on presenting cultural ventures within structured, credible investment opportunities. Panels discussed the financial architecture of culture, examining its valuation, structured funds, and blended instruments as key to promoting the arts as a strategic asset class. The overlap with the massive Saudi investment in tourism is evident, as culture, heritage, sports, and entertainment form the activities that draw visitors into these new infrastructural and real estate developments. This relationship is reciprocal: “Tourism amplifies culture on the global stage, sport celebrates it through shared experiences.” The experiential angle is also evident in the emphasis Saudi Arabia has placed on more immersive cultural experiences and hospitality.

Culture as Soft Power and Global Influence

Alongside the tangible economic benefits of cultural ventures, Saudi officials and speakers expressed a clear understanding of the more subtle powers and national benefits of culture. One plenary panel put the emphasis on narrative: “Global storytelling shapes diplomacy, identity, and soft power. We need to place Saudi stories on the world stage.”

There is therefore a deliberateness to the promotion of Saudi visual artists, musicians, movie producers, and designers. As described by cultural advisor Hatem Alzahrani, Saudi Arabia’s new cultural infrastructure – “from the Red Sea to Diriyah, from museums and music academies to digital platforms and public artworks” – has been “an intentional act of authorship.” He wrote, “By investing in culture, Saudi Arabia is building platforms for exchange that are more adaptable, more human and more open-ended than formal diplomacy alone.”

This intent could be seen in the very first visit of King Salman bin Abdulaziz to China in 2017, when he was accompanied by Saudi artist Ahmed Mater who presented Chinese President Xi Jinping with one of his works of art. And it can be seen in the alternating contemporary and Islamic art biennales integrating the kingdom into the international arts circuit. Other annual events undertaken by some of the 11 arts commissions promoted under the Ministry of Culture – the Red Sea Film Festival and the just completed Riyadh Fashion week – are expanding the medium of artistic expression as well as the kingdom’s cultural reach. A new generation of culinary experts, clothes designers, film directors, and conceptual artists now represent Saudi Arabia at home and abroad.

The Cultural Elite

The latter point brings up an important question: Who is authoring this new Saudi narrative? One thing that is notable about the Saudi turn toward arts and culture is the rapid establishment of the creative class as a new national elite. These individuals have been empowered to tell the new Saudi story, embody the new Saudi identity, and engage with other cultural elites to position Saudi Arabia on the global stage.

What stands out among these cultural elites is their youth and global understanding. Saudi Arabia under King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz spent over a decade sending tens of thousands of Saudis to study abroad under a generous scholarship program. Many came home with a greater sophistication about global culture and eager to add to it with their own language and experiences. Others who didn’t travel abroad engaged through social media – Saudi Arabia boasts one of the world’s most digitally active populations. The most prominent cultural entrepreneurs elevated by the Saudi state share this outward orientation, though with a distinct Saudi presentation.

They also provide a completely new means of extending Saudi influence apart from the older elite experts in oil and finance and the traditional ruling family or religious interlocutors in security and state affairs. These cultural attractions likewise skew toward the affluent. The arts appeal to a selective and somewhat exclusive demographic, which, though not without its drawbacks, perhaps, is nonetheless beneficial as Saudi Arabia looks to attract visitors, investors, and talent.

Invest in Saudi Culture

As Saudi Arabia looks to integrate globally and shift from an Arab or Islamic presentation to a more national one, culture is becoming integral to its outreach and identity. The first Cultural Investment Conference sought to convince domestic and global investors that arts and culture in Saudi Arabia are a value proposition and to entice them to share in this project. As Saudi artists become more prevalent – in solo exhibitions at Christie’s auction house, films at the Cannes film festival, and performances at the Sydney Opera House – that appeal may grow.

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Attendees had the opportunity to engage with our leadership, scholars, and others with shared interests and learn about AGSI’s work in deepening global understanding of the Gulf region.

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These delicate reminders of the beauty of Palestinian heritage serve as a poignant act of resilience for a people and culture resisting erasure. These garments and objects capture and honor the stories and memories of Palestinians at home and in the diaspora, celebrating personal and collective histories during an ongoing period of unfathomable woe.

In July, Art Jameel, founded by Saudi businessman Fady Jameel as a privately funded organization that supports arts and culture in the Arab world, concluded the exhibition “Eltiqa: How to Work Together? A Collective Artistic Practice From Gaza.” The show, which opened February 6, charted the story of Eltiqa (“encounter” in Arabic), an artist collective founded in Gaza City in 2000. For over 20 years, Eltiqa members developed artistic practices together and staged numerous exhibitions and workshops in Gaza City, supporting a generation of aspiring young artists from Gaza. In December 2023, Eltiqa’s space was destroyed by Israeli bombing. The texts and expressive, vibrantly colored works of art on display in Dubai told the story of the collective. The show included more than 180 works by six of the collective’s founding members: Mohammed al-Hawajri, Mohamed Abusal, Abdel Raouf al-Ajouri, Raed Issa, Dina Matar, and Sohail Salem.

Dina Matar, “Summer of Gaza” (2016). (Courtesy of the artist)

“At Art Jameel, we understand the continuity of craft and cultural heritage as fundamental to what defines humanity; nowhere is this more under violent threat right now than in Palestine,” said Antonia Carver, director of Art Jameel. “We’d planned ‘Thread Memory’ for Hayy Jameel and the Eltiqa show for Jameel Arts Centre long before the genocide of the past two years. These shows are based on the long-time resilience and extraordinary works and stories of the Palestinian arts scene. It’s given all the artists, curators, lenders, and producers of the shows so much hope to see the way in which audiences in Saudi, the UAE, and now Scotland have embraced the exhibitions with so much enthusiasm and emotion and found ways to express their own solidarity with Palestinian life and culture at this time.”

Numerous cultural institutions and galleries in the Gulf Arab states, predominantly the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain, have elevated artistic initiatives and exhibitions to support and preserve Palestinian culture and heritage. The events largely reflect the long-held popular support in Gulf Arab states for the Palestinian cause, pre-dating and continuing since the signing of the Abraham Accords in Washington in 2020, normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain. But since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, there has been a notable spike in initiatives in the Gulf in support of the Palestinian cause. These have included the exhibition “On This Land,” originally planned by the Birzeit-based Palestinian Museum as a presentation of artists from Gaza. The exhibition evolved into a collaborative effort between Dubai’s Alserkal Arts Foundation and Sharjah’s Barjeel Art Foundation. It was displayed first at Concrete on Alserkal Avenue in November 2023 and then moved to the Bin Matar House in Muharraq, Bahrain in October 2024. In Doha, “Memory of the Land,” at Msheireb Museums, celebrated Palestinian identity through art by 12 Arab artists. And, most recently, as part of the Tasweer Photo Festival in Doha, “Obliteration – Surviving the Inferno: Gaza’s Battle for Existence,” explored the theme of belonging through the lens of photographers in Gaza.

View of the exhibition “On This Land,” Bin Matar House, Muharraq, Bahrain, October 13 – November 7, 2024. (Courtesy of George Mathew)

“While Palestine is always a recurrent and present theme, after the present Gaza war, there was an increased emphasis on Palestine in the region,” said Sultan Sooud al- Qassemi, founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation. “Since the war started, there were a number of initiatives that presented Palestinian history, Palestinian rootedness, Palestinians’ belonging to the land, especially given what we see as a war essentially targeted at driving out Palestinians from Gaza.” The Barjeel Art Foundation has supported the relocation of Palestinian artists to the UAE from Gaza during the war. Qassemi noted, “You have a choice of buying an artwork or saving a person’s life. We had to redirect our resources to urgent matters. This also prompted Palestinians to make art about Palestine. At Art Dubai this year, there was a strong presence of Palestinian artists.”

Married couple Hawajri and Matar, of the Eltiqa collective, are among those who received support to move to the UAE. They fled Gaza in 2024 with their children when their house was being bombed by Israeli airstrikes. Hawajri said, “When I first came here, I was very sad because it was not easy, it was a very heavy time for me and for my family to leave my homeland. But when I arrived here, I started to think if I stayed and if I start to cry, to be sad all the time, I don’t do anything. I remember I am artist, and I must do something.”

For the inaugural Abu Dhabi Public Art Biennial in 2024, a vibrant mural painting by Hawajri, “Peace With a Blue Horizon,” covered one of Abu Dhabi’s concrete residential buildings, presenting a natural landscape typical of traditional Palestinian art. In November 2024, Matar was invited to Abu Dhabi Art’s public commissions program and showed several of her paintings in Al Ain. “We Defend Our Gazelles,” painted in acrylics, is particularly poignant, portraying women dressed in traditional Palestinian tatreez-embroidered dresses. “Through our art we can show something different to the current situation in Gaza,” said Hawajri emphasizing how the media shows thousands of videos and images of devastation but rarely art. “I share a new image, and I share a new life. Normally, to share artwork in this situation causes surprise for some people because they cannot imagine a time like this that there is art.” He continued, “During this time, some artists create art to share hope for people. It’s our work now.”

During both Art Dubai 2024 and 2025, booths, events, and panels displayed works of art by Palestinian artists and referenced Palestinian culture and heritage. In 2024, the Art Dubai Group, the fair’s owners, donated 25% of advanced ticket sale proceeds to the Emirates Red Crescent, affiliated with the Red Cross, to support vulnerable communities in the region. Art Dubai Group made a similar donation during the October 2023 “Downtown Design” fair.

“We’ve noticed a growing interest in Palestinian art since the start of the genocide war on Gaza,” said Dubai-based Palestinian Ziad Anani, founding director of Zawyeh Gallery, which has branches on Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue and in Ramallah. “While this may be partly tied to the broader context of the situation in Palestine, we also believe our own efforts have played a role.”

Over the past several months, Anani said the gallery has been actively expanding into new markets and has witnessed a stronger demand for prints compared to original pieces. To meet the demand, the gallery is adding new print editions by both emerging and established Palestinian artists. One of its key shows was “Posters for Gaza,” in early 2024 at Zawyeh Gallery in Dubai. The gallery invited 26 Palestinian artists to create posters for the exhibition, using the medium to raise their voices in solidarity with Gaza. “Exhibitions like this have helped reinforce our commitment to promoting Palestinian art while also responding to increased collector interest, particularly in more affordable and widely distributable formats like prints,” added Anani.

During Art Dubai 2025, Zawyeh Gallery presented works of art by renowned Palestinian artists Sliman Mansour and Nabil Anani. Both artists joined the boycott campaign of the first intifada, refusing to use art supplies from Israeli sources. Instead, they turned to local materials, such as untreated goat leather, mud, henna, wood, straw, and other natural mediums. The use of natural materials from Palestine gave their work a “compelling presence,” Ziad Anani said, adding that most of Nabil Anani’s works sold, including one acquired by a museum. “Our presentation drew strong interest from both local and international collectors and institutions, with one of the large murals by Anani a highlight of the fair,” Ziad Anani said. “Exit into the Light No. 3,” made of leather, ceramic, embroidery, and mixed media, portrays a procession of abstract figurative men and women donning garments with traditional Palestinian embroidery.

Numerous other galleries at Art Dubai 2025 presented works of art by Palestinians. From Saudi Palestinian artist Dana Awartani’s “Standing by the Ruins” installation featuring patterned flooring that recalls the geometric designs of Gaza’s historic Qasr al-Basha to Palestinian artist Mirna Bamieh’s blending of ceramics, drawing, video, and text to showcase her homeland’s rich heritage in food fermentation and preservation, Palestinian culture was front and center.

Zawyeh Gallery recently ran an online exhibition of Palestinian artist Mohammed Joha’s 2006 series: “Gaza: Between Rubble and Memory.” While painted close to 20 years ago in Gaza, the abstract paintings, with their expressionist brushstrokes coupled with bold lines of spray paint, are particularly poignant as the Gaza strip endures another extreme chapter of suffering. The abstract layers are akin to physical scarring that refuses to heal and eruptions of paint akin to Israeli bombings and the resulting anguish and unending agony. They serve as a metaphor for the survival of memory amid conflict, suffering, starvation, and death. This memory of the heritage and culture of the Palestinian people, presented in so many exhibitions in the Gulf, persists and resists eradication despite the endless destruction.

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“Heatwave,” Bahrain pavilion, 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture (Photo by Ishaq Madan, courtesy of Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities)

Bahrain’s pavilion is part of a broader shift in how Gulf Arab states are leveraging architecture to address – or at least narrate – pressing environmental and social questions. Framed as an urgent yet poetic response to extreme heat, “Heatwave” advances a vocabulary of modular platforms, raised canopies, and passive cooling strategies rooted in traditional Bahraini architecture. But beyond its technical sophistication and articulate design, the pavilion’s political and ethical stakes demand closer interrogation – particularly in comparison with its regional counterparts from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman.

Curated by Andrea Faraguna and commissioned by Khalifa bin Ahmed al- Khalifa, “Heatwave” proposes an architectural language attuned to the experience of heat as an embodied condition, especially among those who have to inhabit outdoor spaces – namely laborers and low-income workers. Drawing inspiration from wind towers, shaded courtyards, and local material systems, the pavilion positions itself as a climate-responsive prototype and a platform for rethinking “thermal commons” – namely shared spaces, resources, practices, and knowledge related to thermal comfort within a community, in short shared civic infrastructure. The structure is at once minimal and affective – a reminder of how modernism once promised social equity through spatial design. But to what extent can such an elegant gesture intervene in systems that produce environmental and social precarity in the first place?

“Heatwave,” Bahrain pavilion, 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture (Photo by Ishaq Madan, courtesy of Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities)

“Heatwave” is among the few Gulf pavilions that embody realities of extreme heat and the lived experiences of vulnerable workers. Yet some danger may lie in precisely this framing – where the sometimes lethal intensity of climate is abstracted into a universal design problem. For decades, like other Gulf countries, Bahrain has relied on South Asian migrant laborers to build and maintain its urban infrastructure. Many of these laborers work outdoors in summer, often with little protection or oversight. However, Bahrain’s official policy prohibits outdoor work in direct sunlight from midday to late afternoon during the hottest months – from June 15 to September 15, between 12 pm and 4 pm. The policy applies primarily to traditional field laborers, carries substantial fines and criminal penalties for violations, and is enforced through active inspections. But, according to numerous Bahraini media reports, the policy is limited in scope and does not account for real-time heat conditions – prompting calls for broader coverage and climate-responsive measures. Considering this context, “Heatwave” risks appearing as a symbolic balm – an aesthetic resolution to a much deeper structural issue.

Other Gulf national pavilions engage with similarly urgent themes. Saudi Arabia’s “The Um Slaim School,” curated by Beatrice Leanza and presented by Syn Architects, focuses on the study of traditional Najdi vernacular forms. The exhibition space is a “living archive” that celebrates tradition and community learning. Despite its ambition, the Saudi pavilion leans heavily on representation rather than spatial engagement, raising questions about whether architecture can function as a form of pedagogy without actual construction. Moreover, its reliance on antiquated notions of heritage and history does not offer a solution to the concerns posed by the biennale’s theme – instead, it is nostalgic and romanticized. In contrast to Bahrain’s tactile prototype, Saudi Arabia offers a discursive platform – valuable in itself but less grounded in the material reality of urban transformation.

The UAE’s “Pressure Cooker,” curated by Azza Aboualam, centers on food security and greenhouse design in arid contexts. It showcases modular “kit-of-parts” structures for localized agriculture and offers an alternative narrative to the resource-extractive history of Gulf development. Its architectural “cookbook” format is inventive, but its speculative nature – like many research-led exhibitions – is difficult to assess without implementation. Unlike “Heatwave,” which confronts heat as a spatial and civic problem, “Pressure Cooker” frames food production as a systems question, somewhat detached from questions of equity and access.

Qatar’s debut pavilion, “Beyti Beytak” (“My House Is Your House”), plays with hospitality as an architectural and cultural trope. With installations ranging from Yasmeen Lari’s bamboo “Community Centre” to archival explorations of Middle East and North African architecture, Qatar’s pavilion functions more as cultural diplomacy than architectural critique. While its ambition to represent multiple geographies and generations is admirable, its use of hospitality – serving dates and coffee, invoking the mashrabiya (wooden screen windows) – occasionally seems performative. Unlike Bahrain’s “Heatwave,” which is modest in scale but radical in implication, Qatar’s offering is expansive and curated to impress – a mirror of its wider cultural strategies in Doha and beyond.

Kuwait’s “Kaynuna” (“Being”), meanwhile, provides the most introspective reflection on modernization. Led by Abdulaziz al-Mazeedi and a team of young designers, the pavilion critiques the demolition-driven ethos of Kuwait’s urban policies. It proposes alternative frameworks that bridge memory, identity, and material sustainability. Among all the Gulf pavilions, “Kaynuna” comes closest to Bahrain’s pavilion in its willingness to confront the erasures of state-led development. Yet where Bahrain responds with architectural form, Kuwait uses speculative drawings and conceptual installations.

“Traces” is Oman’s Venice Biennale of Architecture debut. It focuses on the sablah, a traditional gathering space. The pavilion’s material choices – woven palm, modular seating, and pottery-inspired structures – articulate a vision of architecture as continuity rather than rupture. While modest compared to the other Gulf contributions, it is also the most grounded. In comparison to “Heatwave,” “Traces” offers a quieter meditation on climate, community, and temporality.

“Heatwave,” Bahrain pavilion, 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture (Photo by Ishaq Madan, courtesy of Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities)

Bahrain’s “Heatwave” has distinguished itself not only by winning the Golden Lion for Best National Pavilion but by grounding environmental design in spatial and political urgency. Its invocation of the “thermal commons” is an important intervention in architectural discourse, particularly at a time when climate response is often reduced to technical solutions that do not directly address social concerns. But its real legacy will depend on what happens after Venice. Will its modular design be replicated in schoolyards, labor sites, and bus stations in Manama? Or will it become yet another speculative gesture consigned to the archives of biennale architecture? To avoid that fate, Bahrain must move beyond the aesthetics of care and confront the deeper structures that perpetuate thermal inequality. Architecture, after all, is not just about shelter or cooling – it is about who gets to inhabit space with dignity. In that regard, “Heatwave” is not an answer but a provocation. And perhaps that is precisely why it matters.

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Animation in the Arab World

While the Gulf has played a key role in the recent growth of Arab animation, today’s industry stands on the shoulders of a rich history of Arab animation dating back to the 1930s, when cinemas in Egypt began to screen U.S. productions. Hits such as “Mickey Mouse” and “Felix the Cat” inspired local artists, including the Frenkel brothers, three sons of Russian Jewish immigrants who produced the first short celluloid films. They produced nine episodes of the series “Mish Mish Effendi” between 1937 and 1950 before they were forced to leave Egypt. Yet, from the 1930s to 1990s, the small but growing animation industry, producing primarily commercials, was dominated by Egyptian animators, joined by Algerian and Tunisian animators in the 1960s. By the late 1990s, Arab animation production began to expand with the spread of Arab satellite channels and the introduction of modern animation technologies. However, there were no specialized children’s channels. Instead, major channels would broadcast children’s programming at a specific time each day, mostly Japanese anime.

That changed in 1997, when the Disney Channel launched in Arabic and English across the region. In 1999, Bahrain Radio and Television Corporation signed an agreement to broadcast a children’s cartoon channel. Then, in 2001, Spacetoon launched as the first Arab, free-to-air animation and anime channel – revolutionary as the first to broadcast Arabic-dubbed anime 24 hours a day. Since then, Spacetoon has transformed into an entertainment powerhouse for families across the Middle East and North Africa, with headquarters in Dubai and local offices in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt.

Panelists during “Broadcasting Animation: A Global Perspective on Content, Collaboration” at the Sharjah Animation Conference, May 2025. (Credit: Lauren McMillen)

Sharing Gulf Stories 

Over the past decade, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have played key roles in the Arab animation industry through investments in productions at animation studios in the Gulf and wider region, representing stories and characters that reflect Arab histories and culture. In 2006, the Dubai studio Lammtara Pictures premiered one of the first major 3D animated series in the region, “Freej,” with funding from the Dubai government. “Freej” (neighborhood in the Emirati Arabic dialect) depicts the lives of four elderly women navigating life in modern Dubai. With the help of government promotion, “Freej” became a national icon and part of local popular and commercial culture, through contracts with state companies, such as FlyDubai, and the opening of a theme park. In 2018, “Freej” became the first solely Arab-produced animated TV show to be dubbed in Japanese.

In an essay for The Gazelle, Dubai native Roudha Almarzouqi described the show as merging “aspects of old and new Dubai while demonstrating the UAE’s culture and values.” She noted that it was “one of the very few, if any, cartoon shows based in the UAE that showcases Emirati daily life and heritage.” For example, the four women who are the main characters wear traditional Emirati dress, cook traditional Emirati dishes, and converse in the Emirati dialect. She continued, “’Freej’ is much more than a show to me; it is a piece of my childhood and is filled with memories of my younger self.”

Another UAE-based series is “Ali and the Secret Gate,” created by Dubai-based North Wind Studio. Kristina Kleymenova, one of the founders of the studio, said a key challenge in the animation field is successfully pitching original, local content to broadcasters, who “tend to play it safe by airing what’s already been successful internationally.” In contrast, Kleymenova wants to bring the unique experience of children living in Dubai, a city in which almost 90% of its population are expatriates, to the screen by representing the numerous cultures and languages that children navigate each day.

In 2013 on YouTube, Abu Dhabi-based Bidaya Media launched what would become one of the most popular animated series in the region, “Mansour.” Written for 6-9 year olds, the series highlights the importance of family, cultural diversity, and creativity. Bidaya’s creative director, Adam Khwaja, said in 2023 that the YouTube channel logged 392 million hours of watch time and 2.5 billion views. “Mansour” was the first original Arabic cartoon series to reach that many viewers, the majority of whom came from outside the UAE. The popularity of “Mansour” prompted the studio to launch a reboot, “The Adventures of Mansour: The Age of A.I.,” which will feature an animation “upgrade” and a mixture of Arabic dialects from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, and Sudan. By incorporating themes including artificial intelligence and climate change, Bidaya aims to reflect “a more modern Arab society, rather than an outdated stereotype.”

Alongside the UAE, Saudi animators and broadcasters are playing a growing role in bringing Arab animation to audiences in the region. In 2011, Saudi-based broadcaster MBC aired “Al-Masageel,” the first animated sitcom representing Bedouin history and culture. The series was produced by the Amman-based Sketch in Motion Animation Studio and ran for three seasons. In 2020, after signing a five-year exclusive partnership with Saudi animation studio Myrkott to bring viewers Saudi-focused content, Netflix debuted “Masameer County.” On July 7, 2021, “Masameer County” set a record for consecutive days in the number one position on Netflix’s top 10 chart for TV shows in Saudi Arabia. “What Masameer County exemplifies is the freedom of the Saudi artistic imagination, which is shocking, stunning, hilarious, and wild,” wrote Sean Foley, author of “Changing Saudi Arabia: Art, Culture, and Society in the Kingdom.” He highlighted that the series provides Saudi society with a framework for discussing contentious issues by being able to present them as apolitical. While episodes have dealt with taboo topics, such as homosexuality, “national leaders are not discussed,” he noted, “and nobody is really blamed for the problems facing society.”

While UAE- and Saudi Arabia-based production studios fund and plan many new animated series in the region, animation studios in Egypt or Jordan are often contracted to animate them. Yusuf Khaled, an Egyptian filmmaker, animator, and visual artist and creative technologist at ZANAD Studio in Cairo, discussed the impact of Gulf funding on the wider animation field. “The Gulf region is sort of dominating the production scene, where the contracts will outsource people from Egypt and actually transfer them to their countries to start studios,” he said. “I know many people who went to Saudi Arabia to start studios there. It’s kind of cheap labor compared to Europeans or Westerners, and you get quality work.”

Arafa Nasser, founder and CEO of Oman’s only animation studio, Coco Productions, also underscored the significance of Gulf funding for creative work. “In the UAE, people are much freer with their financial investments when it comes to creativity,” she said. “On the other hand, when it comes to Oman, you have to fight for opportunities and really work hard to make people feel like it’s worth it, and a lot of it is commercial. It pays the bills, but sometimes it’s like – you’re a creative! You have all of this energy and imagination and places you want to go with it, but you’re confined.”

Nasser is building the Gulf country’s animation industry from the ground up. After studying and working in architecture for eight years, Nasser completed a second bachelor’s in animation at SAE University College Dubai, which offers the UAE’s only bachelor of animation program. She began working at BetterJune Entertainment, where she played a key role in the production of “Ajwan,” the first Arabic sci-fi animation. “The caliber of work I was doing with ‘Ajwan’ and BetterJune – they were trying to put themselves at a place where they could compete with international standards,” she said.

However, after deciding to return to Oman, Nasser struggled to find a production company with an animation department at all. “I was like, well, there is no animation industry here, whatsoever, in Oman,” she said. “In January 2023, I decided I was just going to do it – start my own studio.”

Since then, Nasser’s Coco Productions has produced a wide variety of animations, primarily for use in live action shows and films as well as commercials. Yet, Nasser’s passion and heart lies in more creative productions. “We did a project this year for the Oman Pavilion in the Japan Expo in collaboration with Oman-based jewelry company Rahina. It’s a beautiful project, a traditional Omani board game,” she said. “Omani jewelry designer and artist Fatma al-Najjar created a large version of the game for the pavilion, so another Omani animator and I created an animated video in Japanese and English to explain how to play. We took influences from cute Japanese animation. That was really cool – it was a home-grown Omani thing, it went abroad. I was really, really proud of that one.” While the studio is only two years old, Nasser’s work has made a name for itself not only in Oman but in the wider region. “A lot of the work I’ve had at Coco has been industry word of mouth,” she said. “I’m really proud of that.”

The “Superheroes” exhibition at the Sharjah Animation Conference, May 2025. (Credit: Lauren McMillen)

Fostering Arab Animation 

Perhaps one of Sharjah Animation Conference’s most illustrious guests was Disney animation legend Anthony Bancroft. Bancroft co-directed “Mulan” and created beloved characters including Pumba from “The Lion King” and Kronk from the “Emperor’s New Groove.” He spoke about the crucial nature of governmental support in scaling the animation industry. “Tax credits are really the main answer. Thriving industries like Montreal or Toronto – the reason they have industries that are budding up is because their countries have tax credits that would help the producers of the project to do production for less money. Most studios, like Nickelodeon, Disney, or DreamWorks, will do the pre-production, character design, and visual development and then send it all overseas,” he explained. “So, instead of paying $50 million, if they outsource to do the animation in Canada, it’s like they paid $30 million. They’ve saved $20 million.” Bancroft said, “If the UAE wants to work with studios in California, like Disney, DreamWorks, and Sony, they just have to go to them and say: We can give you 30% tax credit if you do 90% of it here.”

Bancroft also highlighted the importance of accessible animation education. “You have to have schools,” he said. “My brother and I started an animation department at a local school. So, not only do we do an animation expo, but we run the animation department, and we’re growing the industry that way. Pretty soon, we can show our talent by doing a short. That becomes a calling card. Then, we show Disney, we show DreamWorks. Hey, this is what we can do.”

Mohamad Hamad, a comic designer and lecturer in animation at the German University in Cairo, also stressed the importance of university animation courses. “It’s a very growing medium, especially in the Middle East. But the main challenge is trying to convince students to actually fall in love with animation,” he said. “It scares them, because it’s a lot of work and time. But animation is all about passion. You have to love it to know how to make it.”

Both Bancroft and Hamad emphasized that, above all, creating spaces for networking and collaboration in the industry is the most important element in fostering homegrown animation. Bancroft said the Sharjah Animation Conference was “a great way to do this.” He continued, “This is where people make connections. They’re also learning and growing, but getting people together in a hub, creating those relationships and connections, is the big first step.” Hamad stressed, “The beauty about animation and design itself is bringing people together to do interesting work. That’s why I love it, it’s so beautiful.”

The Growing Phase

At the 40th anniversary of Spacetoon in 2024, Jun Imanishi, the consul general of Japan in Dubai, told Arab News Japan that “Animation isn’t just about entertainment; it is a soft power that can influence values, lifestyles and inspire the minds of the youth.” Beyond the economic benefits of supporting Arab animators, directors, and producers, fostering the Arab animation industry is crucial for producing stories that portray the diverse perspectives, stories, and experiences of the world’s 450 million Arabic speakers.

Beyond Arab animation reaching global audiences, the growth of the industry allows animators to remain in the region, continuing to invest in it. Farah, born and raised in Sharjah, is currently pursuing an undergraduate animation degree at North Carolina State University. She said that her goal is to work in the animation industry in the UAE. “It’s pretty clear that the animation industry in the Middle East is still in its growing phase. That said, ideally in the end I would like to end up in the Middle East, doing my own thing,” she said. “I want to tell stories that represent my own culture and the values and themes of our own culture, because it is not as represented in the media. Whether it ends up being a worldwide thing or not is out of my control. But I want to do it because I want to know that it’s here.”

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Ammar told AGSI that as a boy he dreamed of participating in the television shows and cartoons that he watched – often memorizing and recreating the scenes he saw from “Duck Tales,” Japanese anime (dubbed in Arabic), “The Muppets,” “Sesame Street,” and other shows. He imagined himself as a cartoon character or one of the puppeteers featured on “The Muppets.” He said he spent hours thinking about “the mechanism of how they’d get the mouth moving, hand gestures and a million questions.” He idolized Mel Blanc, the American actor who was the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and other Looney Tunes characters. Ammar’s passions and interests, however, did not translate well into his schoolwork because, as he explained to AGSI, he “loved learning but was uncomfortable within the confines of a traditional classroom.” His unease with conventional learning was so great, he added, that he convinced his parents to let him study “for a two-year diploma to be a mechanic and skip college” since he “liked to work with his hands.” His uncle suggested that he check out architecture school – a profession Ammar reasoned would allow him to express his creativity in a manner that would be accepted by his parents and society.

Those hopes went unfulfilled, and, in 2013, after 11 years working as an architect, Ammar quit his day job and focused on his childhood dream of working in entertainment. He watched every video tutorial he could find on puppeteering, especially those featuring Jim Henson, the co-founder of “The Muppets” and a central figure in “Sesame Street.” He traveled to the United States, where he had attended graduate school, to get professional training as a puppeteer. In San Francisco, in just 10 days he completed a two-month course on puppet building and designing and puppeteering for TV. His teacher, veteran puppeteer Michael Earl, who worked on “The Muppets” in the 1970s, compared his work to a young Jim Henson’s.

(Courtesy of Ammar Alsabban)

In Jeddah, Ammar crafted his own version of “The Muppets” and “Sesame Street.” He built puppets, including Afroot, a Yeti whom Ammar imagined had immigrated to Jeddah with his family from the Himalayas. He wrote scripts for his puppets, posted YouTube videos of his puppet shows, and sought work with hospitals, schools, and other community partners. Although he promoted a vision of edutainment analogous to what he had watched on TV – family friendly, educational, and inclusive – the initial reception was not promising. He said Saudis were “not into puppetry” at that time. It was still largely an unpopular genre of art in the kingdom, forcing him to create a market for his work from scratch. His first paid performance was at a birthday party. Still, Ammar earned around 280,000 Saudi riyals ($75,000) during the first eight months of his new career, a substantial sum of money at the time for this type of performing arts in the kingdom.

(Courtesy of Ammar Alsabban)

At the same time, Ammar’s videos, especially the ones featuring Afroot, caught fire on social media, helping him secure a job in 2015 with Bidaya Media in Abu Dhabi. There, he joined the reboot of “Iftah Ya Simsim,” the Arabic version of “Sesame Street” that was first broadcast from 1979-90 and that Ammar had watched as a child. As part of his training for the new position, he traveled to New York to study under Martin Robinson, one of the most gifted puppeteers on “Sesame Street.” Ammar earned the nickname “lefty” in New York from the “Sesame Street” puppet builders because he was the first left-handed puppeteer to use the Cookie Monster puppet. On “Iftah Ya Simsim,” Ammar served as the creative director, wrote scripts for six of the 100 episodes, and voiced multiple characters, including Gagur (Grover) and Ka’aki (Cookie Monster). This was challenging work: It required him to produce clear, positive, and educational messages in properly accented Arabic suitable for the entire Arab world. The shows also had to be humorous and retain the attention of the young audience. But the activities his parents once feared were useless were finally paying off. “Growing up watching ‘The Muppets’ and ‘Sesame Street’ religiously,” he observed in 2018, “gave me the advantage that I have now.” A year later he told Arab News that he was living his “childhood dream.”

(Courtesy of Ammar Alsabban)

However, the stress of working on “Iftah Ya Simsim” and living far from his family in Jeddah convinced Ammar not to renew his contract with Bidaya Media in 2019 and to return home to focus on freelance work in the kingdom. Five years earlier, he and a group of friends had pioneered “Mstdfr,” one of the first podcasts in Saudi Arabia. The show’s title came from dafoor, an Arabic word meaning something between a “nerd” and a “geek,” speaking to its offbeat approach and unique outlook. While devising a format for how to package “Mstdfr” and how it should sound to listeners, Ammar remembered listening to “Car Talk” – an American call-in radio program broadcast in Saudi Arabia by the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah. The show, which aired from 1977 to 2012, featured Tom and Ray Magliozzi, Italian American brothers who owned an auto repair shop in a suburb of Boston and dispensed advice to listeners about how to fix their cars. The core of the show was the banter between the Magliozzi brothers. On each episode, they made fun of one another and told jokes and humorous stories while interacting with listeners.

It was a perfect model for Ammar because “Car Talk” was an adult version of the edutainment that he had successfully produced for children using puppets. On “Mstdfr,” he and his partner and co-founder Rami Taibah borrowed the U.S. show’s formula but gave it a Saudi accent. Rather than advising their listeners about car repairs, they focused on Saudi Arabia and topics they and other young Saudis found interesting in their daily lives. They spoke to their audience in “Arablish,” a blend of English and Arabic, which many of their listeners also used – a choice that, like the show’s name, gave them authenticity. Ammar and his friends also used music and jokes, just as Tom and Ray Magliozzi did on “Car Talk,” to fill in gaps in conversation. By 2016, “Mstdfr” was one of the most popular podcasts in Saudi Arabia, with fans calling themselves “Mstdfri.”

As his first podcast began to take off, Ammar was already working on “Kartoon Karton,” a podcast he developed with Abdullah Rafaah. The two men, who worked together on “Iftah Ya Simsim” and shared an apartment in Abu Dhabi, spent hours discussing the storylines, characters, and production of their favorite cartoons. In 2017, they moved their conversations to a podcast, which found a passionate audience in Saudi Arabia and among the thousands of Saudis and other Gulf nationals living abroad. Those listeners became a tight-knit community, adopting the name “Karateen” (the Arabic plural of cartoon) and hosting their own online and in-person “Kartoon Karton” listening parties. They pressed Ammar and Abdullah to hold a live recording, and on the second anniversary of the show the two men organized an in-person event in Jeddah that was attended by more than a hundred people.

During the live recording of “Kartoon Karton,” fans were moved to find other people who, like Ammar, might be socially awkward and who shared his and Abdullah’s niche interest in cartoons. Many became close friends. At later events, Ammar heard stories about how the podcast had positively shaped the lives of listeners, including some who had been on the verge of suicide but, through the show, realized that they were not alone in the world and that there were others like them. “One of the biggest reasons for why we do what we do,” Ammar explained in an interview in 2023 “is that we don’t want people to feel lonely.”

By that time, Ammar’s various creative enterprises had taken off. He co-founded a podcast network with over 13 weekly podcasts, was selected as part of the inaugural cohort of the MiSK 2030 Leaders Program, wrote children’s stories, and forged a new partnership with U.S. creatives. On a panel at the Jeddah Book Fair in 2021, he befriended Ben Earl – a veteran cartoonist for Marvel, who had worked on “Deadly Neighborhood Spider-Man” and “Werewolf by Night.” Ammar and Ben agreed that there was an underserved global market for stories geared to children and young adults rooted in the culture and mythology of the Middle East. They thought a company serving this market with “Marvel-like content with a Middle-East flavor” could help to bridge gaps between societies, prompting them to form WeirdBunch Entertainment. Today, the studio has Saudi and U.S. funding and offices in Jeddah, New York, and Los Angeles. Its senior officers are Ammar and Ben, along with Keith Fay, who directed original series for the Cartoon Network from 2013 to 2022, and Abdullah Alsabban, Ammar’s older brother, who has held leadership positions in senior Saudi companies, such as Panda, one of the country’s most important supermarket chains.

(Courtesy of Ammar Alsabban)

Ammar wrote the inaugural project for the studio, “The Legend of Soloman,” the first Saudi family superhero story. Set in the kingdom in 2050, it follows Soloman, a rebellious 14 year old with a tense relationship with his father. He is a geologist and traditionalist who wants his son to master a 400-page manual before using his superhero powers to benefit society. Soloman has other ideas, and father and son must learn to work together to battle a dark curse. WeirdBunch Entertainment has already created a comic book version of “Legend of Soloman” in Arabic as well as a playable demo for a mobile game and intends to animate it as well, with versions available in English and Arabic. In the future, Ammar hopes the company will expand to telling stories not only from the Middle East but also from South Africa and other countries.

This follows the path of other Saudi creatives, such as Malik Nejer, the director of the Saudi animated series “Masameer,” whose most recent film, “Masameer Junior,” featured Ammar as a voice actor. Malik and his team have also partnered with Chinese and Saudi animators to bring “Ne Zha 2,” a blockbuster animated fantasy action-adventure film series, to Middle East screens in summer 2025. Because many Arab viewers are not familiar with Chinese mythology, Malik explained to Xinhua, he “matched each on-screen tribe with a distinct Arabic dialect” and searched for cultural parallels when concepts had no exact equivalent in the Arab world. Ultimately, the film that viewers will see in Arab theaters is, in Malik’s words, “Ne Zha 2” but “with a Saudi accent.”

These types of cross-cultural partnerships closely echo the principles that Ammar has promoted in his work along with how he, Malik, and other Saudi creatives define themselves and their place in the world today. Many of these Saudis imagine their world and express themselves in their art and other aspects of their life through collage. Ammar’s social media avatar, in which he pulls away his thobe to reveal a blue shirt imprinted with the red letter “S,” is in homage to the iconic image of Superman transforming from his alter ego Clark Kent into a superhero. “Don’t follow your passions,” Ammar told AGSI. “Instead, identify your purpose and utilize your passions to help you achieve it.” Ammar has done so with great passion for over a decade and emerged as one of Saudi Arabia’s most dynamic creative actors.

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