The unpredictable circumstances currently challenging the region have pushed its residents and businesses to adapt in the face of change. Art Dubai is the Middle East’s leading art fair and ordinarily takes place in April every year; it postponed its 20th-anniversary edition and will instead open in May 2026 in a scaled-back format that celebrates the long-term relationships the fair has built with regional galleries, collectors and artists.
Ahead of the 2026 edition, MOJEH speaks to Art Dubai Director Dunja Gottweis about the resilience of the region’s creative community, what makes Art Dubai stand out amongst its global counterparts, and how a family holiday to Istanbul sparked her love for art.
What is your first art-related memory?
One of my earliest art-related memories is visiting the Blue Mosque in Istanbul with my parents. I must have been eight or nine years old. We spent many of our childhood holidays in Turkey, and I still remember the feeling of walking inside and being completely surrounded by history, art, craft, design and spirituality all at once.
It was not one thing in isolation, but the way everything came together: the floral tiles, the calligraphy, the stained-glass windows, the architecture, the scale of the space, and the sense of devotion embedded in every detail. I remember feeling grounded and overwhelmed by it, in the best possible way.
Looking back, I think that experience changed something in me. It showed me that art is not only something you look at on a wall. It can be spatial, sensory, communal and deeply connected to memory, place and belief. That feeling has stayed with me.
After working in New York and Vienna, what stands out in Dubai’s art landscape?
It’s a welcoming and inclusive space. Dubai is a city where so many different communities, histories and perspectives meet, and you feel that very strongly in the cultural scene.
Coming from Vienna and New York, both with very established art ecosystems, Dubai’s openness feels exciting. There is room for new voices, new formats and new conversations. People are curious, generous with introductions, and truly interested in building a path forward together.
It also carries a particular sense of momentum. The scene is young compared to some older art capitals, yet it feels confident, international and deeply connected to the region. That combination is rare – a place that is ambitious and future-facing, but still personal enough that people feel they can participate in its future.
Birds Are Gathered In God, Maryam Lamei (2021). Courtesy of Leila Heller Gallery/Art Dubai
What led you to this new chapter at the helm of Art Dubai?
My path into the art world wasn’t completely linear. I studied International Business Administration, but quite quickly felt that it was not where my sense of purpose was. I was drawn to art history, but I also needed to work, and that led me to my first role at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, a place where art, architecture and design meet in a very natural way.
I worked closely with the museum’s director at the time, Peter Noever, who introduced me to the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk. It helped me understand that art is not separate from life, but something that shapes how we experience space, ideas, society and ourselves. Being surrounded by art every day changed the way I saw the world.
After six years, I felt I wanted to broaden my horizon and explore the international art world more directly. I reached out to a friend who was working at Art Basel and asked whether there might be an opportunity. A month later, I found myself living in Basel and travelling the world. I spent six years there, later supported the launch of Art Basel in Hong Kong, and then moved to New York, where I became Global Head of Gallery Relations. That period gave me a deep understanding of galleries: how they work, what they need, and how important long-term relationships are in this field.
When Ben Floyd reached out about Art Dubai, I became more and more excited with every conversation. I was drawn also by the wider Art Dubai Group, a company that spans art, design, education, commissioning and social impact. There is a rare energy in Dubai, a future-facing openness, and a sense that cultural infrastructure is still being actively defined. After many years in more established art fair contexts, the opportunity to contribute to a platform that is so deeply rooted in its region, and still evolving with such purpose, felt incredibly meaningful.
What was the one assumption you held about Art Dubai before you started that you had to completely discard within your first few months on the job?
When I started, I think I assumed I would approach parts of the role in a way that was familiar to me, travelling to many of the same places, looking for galleries and artists through the networks I already knew well. Quite quickly, I realised that Art Dubai asks something different of you.
To really understand the fair, you have to spend time in the region. You have to listen, visit galleries, meet artists, understand the histories and contexts they are working within, and pay attention to practices that may not yet have been fully recognised by a more Western-centric global art world,
Art Dubai is unique in that it doesn’t simply reflect what is already visible elsewhere. It is a place of discovery. You come here and encounter artists, galleries and ideas you did not even know you were looking for. This sense of finding what is next, while also understanding the depth of what has been developing here for decades, is what makes the fair so exciting.
As a new director, you have the benefit of fresh eyes. What do you see in the Dubai art scene today that may have been overlooked or taken for granted by those that have been here for the past two decades?
I was struck by how Dubai allows people to think outside the box, to see opportunities and to move with a certain confidence. There is a feeling of safety and support here that makes people more willing to try things, and I think that is easy to take for granted when you are surrounded by it every day.
When I joined Art Dubai, I also noticed the momentum around the fair itself. You witness the love, support and commitment from galleries, artists, collectors, institutions and partners. People really feel they are part of it, and that sense of belonging is very special. I have worked in different art fair contexts, and I have not seen quite the same feeling anywhere else in the world.
Jabel Hafeet, Hashel Al Lamki (2019). Courtesy of Tabari Artspace/Art Dubai
When the doors close on this 20th anniversary edition and you’re back in your office, what is the feedback you hope to receive?
I hope they feel that this edition truly served its community and that it became the meeting point it needed to be, at a moment when the importance of coming together feels especially clear.
From our participating galleries, I’d hope they find that the work they brought found the right audiences, that meaningful conversations happened at their booths, that collectors engaged with seriousness, and that curators left with artists and practices they wanted to follow up on. I would want artists to feel that their work was met with the depth of attention it deserves, particularly artists from this region, for whom visibility on a platform like Art Dubai can carry conversations beyond the fair.
It is my hope that this special edition reflects Art Dubai’s long-standing role as a platform built through long-term relationships, and defined by the galleries, institutions, artists, collectors and partners who have sustained the region’s cultural landscape over the past two decades. This edition has only been possible because of those relationships, and because there was a shared belief that continuity, confidence and connection matter, especially now.
Beyond the metrics of sales and visitor attendance, what is the most important indicator that tells you this year’s edition has successfully moved the needle for the region’s cultural infrastructure?
Art Dubai has always measured its impact in broader terms: whether it creates relationships, visibility, knowledge and opportunities that feed back into the region’s creative ecosystem over time. The fair has persisted and grown as a point of convergence, and the work around it increasingly extends throughout the year.
We see this, for instance, through Art Dubai Projects, our year-round cultural platform; and through initiatives such as the Global Art Forum (GAF), our flagship talks programme now marking its 20th edition, which has consistently laid the groundwork for industry conversations that are still being debated years later. We also see it through institutional partnerships that continue to deepen, for instance our multi-year collaboration with Alserkal Avenue, which this year extends into a co-curated programme of moving image works screened across both venues.
Success means that people leave with new conversations to pursue, new artists to follow, new collaborations to build, and a deeper sense of what this region’s cultural landscape is producing at this moment. In practical terms, that might mean an artist shown at the fair going on to other global presentations, as many past Art Dubai artists have; or it might mean a collector beginning a more serious relationship with a gallery from the region.
Cultural infrastructure is built through continuity and trust, particularly at moments of pressure. If this special edition strengthens that sense of trust, and if the conversations and opportunities it creates carry into the future, then it will have moved the needle in the way that matters most.
What about the fair this year are you looking forward to the most?
Within the programme, there is real breadth and ambition this year, with over 45 gallery presentations spanning contemporary, modern and digital practices, so it is difficult to choose a highlight. A few presentations, however, give a sense of the exciting range we’re looking forward to.
Lebanese artist Nabil Nahas, who recently presented at the Lebanese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, is making new work specifically for the fair. The digital section is particularly strong this year, with Daniel Iregui’s studio Iregular bringing four interactive digital artworks, reimagined in collector formats. The studio is also bringing two proprietary technologies to the fair – CURSOR, a long-range tracking system that powers hand and facial interaction, and SONAR, an ultra-directional sound projection system used to create personal sonic experiences within a shared space.
There is also palpable ambition in the presentations from local artists and galleries. Foundry’s site-specific installation Nation 2.0, curated by Giuseppe Moscatello, is structured around a central architectural framework that integrates a sculptural installation by Sasha Sime alongside video works by Fakewhale Studio, Scerbo and Nation 2.0. Anchored by a monumental golden scaffolding structure rising from a sand-covered floor, with dense black cables extending outward as visible conduits of transmission, the presentation examines how contemporary authority operates through systems rather than declarations, shaping the human condition and recalibrating behaviour at a time increasingly defined by AI and autonomous processes.
While each of these works offer a different register, they all carry the kind of considered, ambitious intent that makes the fair substantive. Plus, after everything that has gone into making this special edition possible, I am looking forward to watching the encounters between artists and audiences, galleries and collectors, partners and the wider community unfold. That is when the fair truly comes alive.
Image courtesy of Art Dubai
How do you see Art Dubai continuing to influence the global art world over the coming years?
For 20 years, the fair has championed artists, galleries and collectors from geographies that have often sat outside the dominant centres of the art world, particularly across the Middle East, South and West Asia, Africa and the wider Global South. That perspective is what continues to carry Art Dubai’s distinctive role in the wider global conversation, and I see it deepening in the years ahead.
Generationally, our work through the fair, our educational initiatives such as Campus Art Dubai, the artist commissions and institutional partnerships will continue to support artists, curators and cultural practitioners whose careers move between the region and the wider world. With Art Dubai Projects, our year-round cultural platform, that work extends further still into commissioning, collections, institutional development and cross-disciplinary programmes that build the conditions for artists to be seen and supported over time.
Art Dubai continues to be independent, regionally rooted, and yet globally connected. It’s a rare combination in the art world, and it allows us to support discovery and dialogue, strengthen cultural infrastructure, and remain an important node for the galleries and artists who have built Dubai’s long-standing ecosystem alongside us. The next phase will focus on deepening this intent, for the artists, galleries and the wider community, whose trust has made 20 years of this important work possible. The special edition of Art Dubai runs from 15 to 17 May 2026. Learn more here
