Manar Abu Dhabi: Art That Lives in the Landscape
When night falls, Abu Dhabi doesn’t sleep—it glows. Manar Abu Dhabi isn’t just an exhibition; it’s the city thinking in light. You don’t just see the art—you move through stories written in shadow, tide, and sky.
Manar Abu Dhabi, the city’s most ambitious public art exhibition, returns in November 2025, illuminating Abu Dhabi’s coastline, islands, and mangroves with light-based installations that run through the winter season.
Held under the umbrella of Public Art Abu Dhabi, this large-scale event features over 35 site-specific sculptures, projections, and interactive works. It’s not just an exhibition—it’s a transformation of space, time, and perception.
From the secluded stretches of Lulu Island to the quiet pulse of Mangrove Island, this cultural event invites exploration. Here, art isn’t framed—it moves with the breeze, mirrors the tide, and lingers in memory long after the lights dim.
Al Manar Abu Dhabi and the Rise of Light as Public Art
Al Manar Abu Dhabi isn’t just a cultural initiative—it’s a shift in how the city presents itself to the world. With over 35 light-based sculptures, projections, and installations, it transforms Abu Dhabi’s public spaces into immersive experiences after dark.
The works span Corniche Road, Lulu Island, and the mangroves—each chosen for its unique geography and atmosphere. International and Emirati artists have contributed, from poetic minimalism to bold, interactive displays that respond to wind, movement, and sound.
Unlike static gallery exhibits, this festival of light breathes with its environment. Visitors don’t observe from a distance—they walk through, linger, and often return. It’s public art that feels alive.
From Vision to Urban Reality: The Public Art Movement Evolves
Public Art Abu Dhabi began as a vision—to integrate art into the rhythm of daily life. With Manar Abu Dhabi, that vision materialized on a grand scale. The exhibition’s name, Manar, meaning lighthouse, signals its purpose: to guide cultural evolution through light.
Urban planners worked closely with curators and artists to select spaces that hold meaning—like Lulu Island’s untouched shoreline or the Eastern Mangroves’ quiet inlets. Artworks were designed to amplify—not overpower—their surroundings.
One of the most talked-about installations is teamLab’s piece on Mangrove Island. It uses subtle light to echo tidal movement and the gentle resistance of mangrove roots. this festival succeeds by listening to the land first—and then letting the art follow.
🌿 Tip for visitors: Walk slowly through the mangroves at night. Some installations only come alive with movement or sound nearby.
Immersive Installations That Reimagine City Spaces
Light becomes architecture, and architecture becomes part of the show. Along the Abu Dhabi’s Corniche, buildings double as projection surfaces. Some works, like those by Groupe F, stretch across entire façades, transforming familiar landmarks into fluid, glowing landscapes.
Other installations take a quieter approach. Subtle sculptures on Fahid Island mirror surrounding rock formations. On Saadiyat, light patterns ripple across sand dunes, shifting with wind and shadow. The result? A city-wide exhibition without walls.
Each piece is site-specific, meaning it only makes sense where it is. That’s what sets Manar Abu Dhabi apart—it’s not just placed art, it’s embedded in place. And that embeddedness turns every location into something deeply memorable.
Iconic Abu Dhabi Islands and Their Artistic Landscape
Abu Dhabi’s islands aren’t just locations—they’re living stages for this unique festival. As light spills over water and sand, each site takes on new meaning. These installations don’t decorate—they transform.
From Saadiyat’s cultural prestige to Lulu’s quiet rawness, light art finds a voice in nature. Curated with precision, each piece responds to land, sea, and silence in its own way.
You’re not walking into a gallery. You’re stepping into a story—told through beams, shadows, and reflection. Manar Abu Dhabi doesn’t just show art; it becomes part of the place.
Saadiyat Island: Where Culture Meets Illumination
Saadiyat is already home to the Louvre Abu Dhabi. But during Manar, it becomes something more—an open-air exhibition of light, set against a backdrop of dunes and heritage.
Installations here stretch across pristine beaches and architectural lines. Many focus on sustainability, dialogue, and how modern art can echo traditional values. The contrast is intentional—and moving.
Artists don’t just place works here. They respond to it. They shape their vision to reflect the island’s voice. And after dark, Saadiyat glows—not with spotlight, but with soul.
💡 We recommend: Arrive just before sunset. Watch as the light shifts—and the island begins to breathe with art.
Lulu Island: A Quiet Canvas, Reimagined
Floating just off the Corniche, Lulu Island is easy to overlook—until Manar Abu Dhabi lights it up. With minimal infrastructure and vast space, it’s become a bold central stage for large-scale works.
Projections roll across the sand. Sculptures rise and flicker, mirroring the movement of waves. Here, water isn’t background—it’s part of the composition.
Because Lulu is undeveloped, artists can think big. Reflections stretch across open sea. Installations wrap around the wind. For one season, this quiet island becomes one of Abu Dhabi’s brightest cultural voices.
Fahid Island: A Place to Pause and Reflect
Fahid Island isn’t loud—and that’s exactly the point. Tucked away from the mainland, it offers a quieter kind of beauty within Manar Abu Dhabi. Here, light doesn’t dazzle—it whispers.
Installations respond to the land’s natural shape. They highlight native plants, rock lines, and the slow passage of time. Many visitors don’t rush through. They wander, pause, and look again.
Because Fahid is more remote, the experience feels personal. You don’t stumble upon these works—you seek them. And when you do, they stay with you.
🧭 Travel tip: Wear comfortable shoes. Bring water. And come open to stillness.
The Artists Who Shaped the Light of Manar Abu Dhabi
Behind every glow and flicker in this exhibition, there’s a story—and an artist with something to say. The exhibition brings together global names and local voices, each offering their own take on how light can feel, move, and speak.
This isn’t art behind velvet ropes. It’s art that watches you back, that shifts as you move, that sometimes waits for your silence to respond. And in Abu Dhabi, those conversations happen under open skies.
Through these works, the city becomes a gallery without walls—and Manar Abu Dhabi becomes a platform for exchange, not exhibition.
When Technology Meets Emotion: Global Artists in Focus
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s installations pulse with presence. As visitors pass, light reacts—tracking movement, capturing sound, and turning spectators into subjects. In Manar, his work becomes part performance, part memory.
Carsten Höller brought his signature touch—art that disrupts perception. His installations played with balance and space, nudging viewers out of visual certainty. You didn’t just look. You questioned what you saw.
Shilpa Gupta’s lightworks explored political borders and invisible boundaries. Her pieces glowed with quiet urgency, layered with meaning that felt especially relevant in a city of many cultures.
Meanwhile, Groupe F transformed the Corniche skyline into a moving mural. Through projection, architecture became canvas. Abu Dhabi itself became part of the light.
🎨 Curious traveler tip: Each artist brings a different energy. Explore more than one site—you’ll feel the shift.
Local Voices, Rooted in Light and Legacy
Manar Abu Dhabi also shines through Emirati perspectives. Mohammed Kazem used light to trace unseen coordinates—mapping identity through absence, not just form. His pieces didn’t demand attention—they earned it.
Ayesha Hadhir reimagined Emirati heritage through contemporary lenses. Her installations blended craft and concept, evoking memory while looking forward.
Sisters Shaikha and Rawdha Al Ketbi built dreamscapes where desert dunes met imagined futures. Their work felt both ancient and post-digital—grounded, yet speculative.
Nujoom Alghanem brought poetry into the physical world. Arabic script, glowing softly, invited reflection. Her art didn’t just illuminate space—it honoured language as light.
The Curators Who Brought It All Together
What made Manar Abu Dhabi truly coherent wasn’t just the art—it was the way it was placed, framed, and felt. Reem Fadda led with vision, ensuring international ideas landed meaningfully in local soil.
Her approach prioritized harmony over spectacle. On Samaliyah Island, for example, installations worked with the mangroves—not against them. Environmental awareness wasn’t a theme. It was a principle.
Alia Zaal Lootah ensured Emirati culture wasn’t background texture—it was central. Her guidance helped blend tradition and technology into a single visual language.
The curatorial team didn’t simply curate artworks. They curated spaces, moods, and moments—turning sites like Lulu Island into stories told through light.
When the Corniche Becomes a Stage for Evolving Art
At sunset, Abu Dhabi’s Corniche changes. The boardwalk, already iconic, begins to glow—with ideas, history, and light. As one of the key sites of this festival, this stretch becomes more than a waterfront—it becomes a moving gallery.
Here, art isn’t contained. It’s embedded in landscape and memory. Visitors don’t just observe—they stroll through stories, reflected in pixels and shadow.
And while the sea stays still, the light doesn’t. It pulses, shifts, and engages—just like the city it inhabits.
Old Themes, New Light: Tradition Reimagined
The Corniche offers a space where the past and future shake hands. Through Manar Abu Dhabi, traditional Emirati symbols take on new form—recast in LEDs, projections, and kinetic surfaces.
Artist Samia Halaby is a prime example. Her digital work, decades in the making, merges painting with animation—giving stillness movement. Her screens shimmer with color and calculation.
Installations like Coral Alchemy (Acropora Grove) reinterpret the region’s marine ecosystems. Others, like Translation Island, weave cultural narratives into abstract lightscapes. Nothing here is literal—everything is layered.
🌊 Our suggestion: Visit the Corniche early in the evening. The contrast between natural light and digital glow is quietly stunning
Technology With Intent: Light That Thinks
The tech used in Manar Abu Dhabi isn’t for show—it’s for meaning. Along the Corniche, pieces like Collider and Pulse Island adapt in real time. Wind, motion, even humidity affect their response.
This means no two moments look the same. You return five minutes later—and the installation has changed. Art becomes ephemeral. Alive.
Works like Abu Dhabi Dots play with human perception. From afar, a pattern. Up close, a mystery. And above it all, synchronized drone shows sketch light across the sky—an echo of what happens below.
💡 Did you know? Many installations were tested months in advance using environmental data specific to the Corniche.
Interaction as Art: The Audience Steps In
What makes Manar Abu Dhabi truly unique is that it invites you in. Sandbox lets visitors shape the piece. Dune Ringers listens to your footsteps. Luciferin Shores reacts to your presence.
You don’t just look at the art—you complete it. One step triggers color. A pause shifts rhythm. You become part of the composition.
Recorded Assembly goes even further. It gathers subtle data—movements, numbers, flow—and folds them into an evolving piece. What you’re seeing is, quite literally, the presence of everyone else.
And throughout the Corniche, QR codes tell you more. Not just about what you’re seeing—but why it exists, who made it, and how it was built.
🎯 Travel tip: Bring headphones. Some pieces include hidden audio layers, accessible only through your phone.
After the Lights Fade, the Memory Remains
After everything we’ve seen through the lens of Manar Abu Dhabi, one thing becomes clear—this exhibition isn’t just about art. It’s about connection. Between place and person. Between light and landscape.
Each glowing sculpture, each whispering projection, reveals how culture can exist beyond museums. In Abu Dhabi, art lives outdoors. It listens to the sea. It moves with the wind. And long after the installations are dimmed, the experience lingers—in memory, in photos, and in the quiet shift of how we see a city.
Whether you’re a first-time visitor or a long-time resident, this exhibition invites you to pause, reflect, and look again. Not just at the lights. But at what they reveal.
Looking for Stillness After the Glow? Al Maya Awaits
In the spirit of places that invite us to see differently, there’s one more destination worth knowing—Al Maya Island Resort.
Just a short boat ride from the mainland, this peaceful retreat offers the same sense of wonder and escape that Manar Abu Dhabi inspires. But here, the art is nature itself. Gentle waves, sunlit palms, and untouched sands become the backdrop for your own private pause.
Al Maya is where the pace slows and the senses open. It’s not loud. It doesn’t try. And maybe that’s the point—some places don’t need light to shine.
Frequently Asked Questions
Daily from 6:00 PM to 11:00 PM; weekends (Fri–Sat) until midnight. Holiday periods may have extended hours.
Via the Abu Dhabi Culture website/app, or trusted platforms like Platinumlist, Virgin Megastore Tickets, and Visit Abu Dhabi. Book early on weekends and holidays.
AED 60 (adults), AED 30 (children 5–12), free for under 5s. Discounts: students AED 45, seniors AED 30, people of determination AED 25. Family pass: AED 150.
Northeast Lulu Island, ~500m off Corniche. Access via ferry from Lulu Island Terminal near Emirates Palace. GPS: 24.4617° N, 54.3222° E.
Each new edition of Manar Abu Dhabi brings fresh installations and artistic collaborations. While full details for 2025 are yet to be officially confirmed, visitors can expect immersive light-based experiences, interactive zones, and works by both local and international artists. For the latest updates, we recommend checking the official Manar Abu Dhabi website or Abu Dhabi Culture channels.
Combo offers likely exist, especially during peak season or major cultural events. For current options, check Abu Dhabi Culture or official ticketing platforms.
