Unseen Script

Unseen Script is a group exhibition of ten artists curated by Meena Vari at Rizq Art Initiative, Leaf Tower, Al Reem Island, Abu Dhabi, running until 28 October 2026.

The exhibition looks at repetition, memory, nature and the patterns of everyday life, across painting, sculpture, assemblage and mixed media. "Every household keeps a script no one wrote down, the gestures, routines and small fidelities through which a life quietly holds itself together," Rizq's founder and executive director, Shafeena Yusuff Ali, told The National. Vari relates the show to artificial intelligence. "We are in this time of artificial intelligence where patterns become the code, and the code then comes back to us and will pre-empt things for us," she told the paper.

The artists are Abdulla P A, Ana Escobar Saavedra, Ismail Al Rifai, Nujoom Alghanem, Najat Makki, Nasir Nasrallah, Fadi Balhawan, Joanna Barakat, Neveen Abu Samra and Simrin Mehra Agarwal. Abdulla P A shows an oil painting more than ten metres long about abandoned homes reclaimed by nature. Ana Escobar Saavedra shows small assemblages of seashells and found objects accented with gold. Ismail Al Rifai's landscapes draw on roads travelled repeatedly. Najat Makki shows works in steel. Nasir Nasrallah's diary-like works draw on objects in his grandfather's former antique shop in Sharjah. Fadi Balhawan combines language, calligraphy and abstraction. Simrin Mehra Agarwal's work looks at decaying palm leaves. Neveen Abu Samra combines painting with traditional Palestinian embroidery. Nujoom Alghanem shows paintings on the city and nature.

Alghanem, who works in film, poetry and painting, represented the UAE at the Venice Biennale in 2019 with Passage. Unseen Script follows Under the Same Sky, Vari's previous group exhibition at Rizq, shown from 22 May to 20 July 2026.