Art never really disappears during war

As someone who genuinely loves art, I’ve always found it strange that the extreme heat of April and May never really bothers me. While most people complain about the start of summer, I quietly look forward to it because, for me, this has become the season of art.

Over the last three years before this one, I’ve spent this period following and celebrating Omani and Oman-based artists presenting their work at Art Dubai. Many of them drew inspiration from Oman itself: its mountains, villages, landscapes, traditions and even its environmental fragility and brought those stories onto an international stage.

I’ve seen installations that made people emotional. I’ve seen artworks that tackled climate change, identity, migration and politics. Some pieces were deeply personal. Others reflected the anxieties of the world around us. But what stayed with me most was how Oman's neighbouring powerhouse managed to build a cultural meeting point where artists from places like Oman could enter global conversations without losing their own identity in the process.

But this year feels different.

The fair’s 20th anniversary arrives at a difficult time for the region. Wars, political tensions and instability across parts of the Middle East forced organisers to rethink parts of the event. And yet, despite everything, the fair still continued.

Maybe smaller. Maybe quieter. More restrained. But alive. And there’s something deeply human about that.

Lately, whether I’m thinking about Venice, Dubai or even smaller art spaces in Oman, I keep coming back to one uncomfortable truth: art never really disappears during war. If anything, it becomes more important.

History has shown this repeatedly. During World War II, artists continued painting while cities burned around them. Palestinian artists turned embroidery, murals and poetry into forms of resistance and cultural survival. Lebanese artists continued creating through years of civil war.

In the middle of all this geopolitical uncertainty, I’ve come to realise that the region needs artists now more than ever, not necessarily to shout louder, but to speak more honestly.

I hope there will still be many exhibitions this year because when visitors walk through these spaces, I hope they understand that something deeper is happening beneath the gallery walls. What they are really seeing is a region refusing to let instability define it completely.