THE ROUNDUP: Pop-culture highlights from across the region
Updated 17 October 2025
Arab News
Snakeskin
‘We Live in Sand’
The Lebanese duo — Julia Sabra and Fadi Tabbal — just dropped their excellent third album, written in October 2024, as Israel’s war on Gaza was expanding to include attacks on Beirut. Understandably, then, there’s an atmosphere of grief, anger and frustration throughout, but as with so much of the music Sabra and Tabbal make — together or separately — there is hope here too. “How to love in our insignificance?” Sabra sings in “Blindsided.” It is the record’s main theme.
eL Seed
‘Moving Canvas’
The Tunisian ‘calligraffiti’ artist teamed up with Art be a Part and Dubai’s Special Needs Future Development Center for his latest project, in which SNF students assisted eL Seed in painting their new school bus (bought with funds raised by Art be a Part). “Art is a driver for social change. Painting gave the children a sense of ownership and belonging,” eL Seed said in a press release. “This is more than a vehicle, it is a symbol of unity and endless possibility.”
Rubina
‘Darya’
The Persian-Candian singer-songwriter released “Darya” — the third single from her upcoming debut EP “Take Me to the Moon” — late last month. According to a press release, the “haunting, hypnotic” track, sung in English and Farsi, “explores how the ocean’s chaos and calm mirror the human experience of love.” Rubina is quoted as saying that the song “is both the storm and the stillness. It’s the place where human emotion dissolves into nature, and nature dissolves into us.”
Art Basel Qatar will pay tribute to region’s ‘culture of gathering’
Focus on community, director Vincenzo De Bellis tells Arab News
84 artists, 87 galleries from Mideast, Asia, Americas and Europe
Updated 08 November 2025
Nada Alturki
DOHA: Art Basel, the international contemporary art fair, will make its Gulf debut in Doha from Feb. 5 to 7 next year featuring 84 artist presentations by 87 galleries.
Art Basel Qatar is a partnership between Art Basel, its parent company MCH Group, Qatar Sports Investments, and QC+, a strategic and creative collective specializing in cultural commerce.
Vincenzo De Bellis, chief artistic officer and global director of Art Basel Fairs, told Arab News at a recent press briefing in Doha that the event will reflect the location’s culture.
“The first thing we started thinking was how we can do this differently from the other fairs.
Attendees at the Art Basel Qatar media briefing. (Supplied)
“Because the region, in our opinion, asks for a different format to begin with, a format where the culture of gathering together, being together, is really part of the concept.
“So, I wouldn’t call it a challenge in that case. It was different from what we do, but it was an opportunity.”
Egyptian artist Wael Shawky has been appointed as the artistic director of Art Basel Qatar.
Shawky and a committee will eschew the traditional booth model in favor of an open-format exhibition in which artist presentations respond to a central curatorial theme of “Becoming.”
De Bellis said: “We’ve appointed a selection committee, composed of both international and regional experts, and experts both in contemporary and more modern art.
“By doing this, we cover a lot of both the artistic intentions, conceptual, and also the cultural specificity of the region.”
The fair will unfold across two key venues, M7 and the Doha Design District, as well as selected public sites in Msheireb Downtown Doha, the city’s creative and cultural hub.
Both the format and curatorial direction will bring the concepts of storytelling and dialogue to the fore, offering new ways for galleries, artists, and collectors to engage while maintaining market relevance.
More than half of the artists presented in this first edition hail from the region, including Etel Adnan, Ali Banisadr, Simone Fattal, Ali Cherri, Meriem Bennani and Iman Issa.
Galleries from across the region will participate, including those with outposts in Gulf states including Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
The wider Middle East and Asia will also be represented, including galleries from Lebanon, Turkiye, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and India.
Saudi Arabia-based galleries participating include Hafez Gallery based in Jeddah and Riyadh, Cairo’s Gallery Misr, Tunis’ Le Violon Bleu, Beirut’s Saleh Barakat Gallery, and Dubai’s Tabari Artspace.
International galleries from across Europe, the Americas and Asia will also participate, including Acquavella Galleries, Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Pace Gallery, David Zwirner and White Cube.
Noah Horowitz, CEO Art Basel. (Supplied)
Art Basel’s CEO Noah Harrowitz said: “Growing the market for galleries, artists, collectors, and patrons around the world is core to Art Basel’s mission.
“So at its heart, Art Basel Qatar is about expanding the conversation and catalyzing the opportunity so present here on the ground in Doha.
“By bringing artists, galleries, and collectors from across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, together with Art Basel’s global community and expertise, will create new possibilities for how art is seen, shared, and ultimately collected.”
