10 Institutional Exhibitions Opening in the MENA Region This October

Ten shows, seven cities and one very busy month

October is shaping up to be one of the busiest months of the year for museums and art centres across the MENA region. Between a long-awaited survey of the Baghdad Modern Art Group in Doha, a moving image biennale in the Medina of Tunis and a major solo show for Sudanese painter Salah Elmur in Dubai, there is plenty to plan a trip around. We've taken our pick from the Opening soon list on Artmena, focusing on non-commercial institutions this time, so keep reading to learn about the ten institutional exhibitions opening across our region this month.

Cairo International Art District 06: Alive Archive, Downtown Cairo

Opening today, the sixth edition of Art D'Égypte's Cairo International Art District takes over three Downtown venues, The Factory, Access Art Space and Kodak Passage, with site-specific installations, urban interventions and a citywide art walk. Launched in 2021 across twelve Downtown spaces, the event has grown fast: last year's edition showed more than 150 artists across five locations. This time the theme is Alive Archive, which treats Downtown Cairo "not as a fixed backdrop but a living archive", in the organiser's words, made of worn stairs, reshaped café chairs and peeling posters. It runs from 11 October to 8 November 2026.

Spices and Wonders: Sailing the Indian Ocean, Louvre Abu Dhabi

Louvre Abu Dhabi's big autumn exhibition, organised with the Musée Guimet in Paris, follows the sea routes that linked Africa, the Middle East and Europe with South and Southeast Asia from Antiquity to the seventeenth century. Spices, textiles, ceramics and other precious cargo tell the story of a trade that shaped our region long before the oil age. Curated by Dr Guilhem André of Louvre Abu Dhabi and Dr Claire Déléry of the Guimet, it travels to Paris next year. It is on view from 14 October 2026 to 14 February 2027.

Between Memory and Matter, Bin Matar House, Muharraq

Saudi artist Zahrah Alghamdi (b. 1977), who is based in Jeddah, represented Saudi Arabia at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019 and is known for installations built from soil, clay, sand, leather and acacia branches. For this solo show, organised by the Shaikh Ebrahim Center at the restored Bin Matar House, she presents new work that grows out of her drawings of the human figure, remade in organic materials tied to Al Baha, where she was born. The Centre calls the works "personified figures that represent memory". Her work is in the collections of the British Museum and the Centre Pompidou. It opens on 18 October and runs from 19 October to 9 December 2026.

The Muse, 2021, Bin Matar House, Muharraq

Also at Bin Matar House, Bahraini artist Ghada Khunji (b. 1967) presents a single, striking object: a black nashel thobe, the traditional ceremonial garment, embroidered in gold as a tribute to Frida Kahlo. Across its back is stitched "أنا ملهمة نفسي", or "I am my own muse", an Arabic translation of Kahlo's famous line. Born in Manama and trained at Parsons School of Design and the International Center of Photography in New York, Khunji works across photography, mixed media and self-portraiture. Entry is free, and it runs from 23 October to 25 December 2026.

Crafts Re-Imagined, Beit El Sehemy, Cairo

Art D'Égypte's second October project pairs contemporary artists and designers with Egypt's master craftsmen in woodwork and stone carving, glassblowing, weaving and tapestry, and khayamiya, the tentmaker's appliqué. The setting is Beit El Sehemy, a house built in 1648 on Darb al-Asfar in Historic Cairo and now a museum. The organiser describes this inaugural edition as "an attempt to open new markets for artisans, strengthen the local creative economy, and place craftsmanship at the center of cultural production." It runs from 23 October to 8 November 2026.

Becoming the Ocean, Jaou Tunis

For the first time, the Biennale de l'Image en Mouvement leaves Switzerland, and its first stop is the Medina of Tunis, as part of the eighth edition of Jaou Tunis. Curated by Lina Lazaar and Andrea Bellini, Becoming the Ocean brings sixteen new commissions by artists from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Arab world to Quechlet El Attarine, a former barracks completed in 1814 that later housed the National Library of Tunisia. Highlights include Palestinian artist Sarah Zeryab's Notes on Camp, set in the Yarmouk refugee camp, and a new work by Lebanese artist Alaa Mansour. From Tunis, the biennale travels on to Venice, Brussels, Geneva and London. Entry is free, and it runs from 24 October to 22 November 2026.

What Lingers in the Artist Mind, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha

Perhaps the most significant show of the month, this survey of the Baghdad Modern Art Group, founded in 1951 by Jewad Selim (1919-1961) and Shakir Hassan Al Said (1925-2004), is curated by art historian Nada Shabout. Drawn largely from Mathaf's own collection and laid out in seventeen thematic sections, it brings together paintings, sculptures, sketches, photographs and archival documents by artists including Naziha Selim, Faiq Hassan, Mohammed Ghani Hikmat and Dia al-Azzawi. Tellingly, archives lost to war are marked by the gaps they leave. We wrote about it in more depth when it was announced. Entry is free, and it runs from 25 October 2026 to 6 February 2027.

Tulun Mosque, Beit Tulun, Cairo

As part of the visual arts programme of the 14th Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF), photographer Ayman Khoury turns his lens on the ninth-century Mosque of Ibn Tulun, which the festival counts as the oldest mosque still standing in Egypt. His black and white photographs move between the vast building and its smallest details, and follow the Sufi ritual of dhikr, so that worshippers and stone sit side by side. Fittingly, the show is held at Beit Tulun, a heritage house facing the mosque. Entry is free, and it runs from 25 October to 1 November 2026.

Accords et dissonances, elles s'exposent, Galerie Delacroix, Tangier

At the Institut français de Tanger's Galerie Delacroix, Moroccan artist Safaa Erruas (b. 1976) is shown alongside the artist Ghislaine Portalis in a two-person exhibition curated by Nadine Gayet Descendre. Erruas, who lives and works in Tétouan, is known for white installations of paper and fabric pierced by pins, needles and razor blades, and here she presents Continuum, a work visitors are invited to walk into. The common thread between the two artists is softness, and the unease it can hide. Entry is free, and it runs from 30 October to 30 December 2026.

Salah Elmur: Just as the Heart of a Mango is a Stone, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai

Closing out the month, Jameel Arts Centre presents a major solo show of Sudanese artist Salah Elmur (b. 1966), who was born in Khartoum and is now based in Cairo. Curated by Zain Al Saie and Qutouf Elobaid, it focuses on works made since 2018, many of them built from photographs taken at Studio Kamal, the studio his family ran in Khartoum, so that his subjects are, in the centre's words, "captured twice, once through film and again in painting." Given everything Sudan has been through, this feels like a timely and moving exhibition. Entry is free, and it opens on 31 October and runs until 14 March 2027.

So, what can we take away from this? Encouragingly, the month's institutional programme stretches well beyond the Gulf, from Tangier and Tunis to Cairo, Muharraq and Doha, and it is full of women artists and artists working with memory and heritage, from Alghamdi's clay figures to Khunji's embroidered thobe and Erruas's pierced white installations. We can't wait to see them.

■