‘Where Sun Meets Shore’ celebrates Dubai summer, advocates reflection
- Last updated: June 26, 2025 | 10:37
Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer
It is appropriate that it is in the heart of Dubai, where heritage embraces modernity and ancient sands meet the contemporary waves of the Arabian Sea, that the new group exhibition, Where Sun Meets Shore, is being held.
The show (June 19 – mid-July), being hosted at Conrad Dubai, brings together eighteen artists and showcases thirty works of art. Presented by Maria Lari, Founder, Social Arts Gallery in partnership with curator FS Karachiwala, the exhibition invites visitors to experience a journey through land, water, and belonging.
The offering is part of the Conrad Art Encounters initiative, a signature global programme that celebrates the intersection of creativity, culture and contemporary luxury. Created to reflect the character of each Conrad property, the initiative allows guests to interact with the artworks that tell stories of heritage, emotion, and place.
The desert and the coastline landscapes that define Dubai become spaces where emotion is transformed into form. The interplay of light and water becomes an artistic language, capturing moments of stillness and movement, vulnerability and strength.
The crash and retreat of waves, the blaze of the sun on the sand, the shifting textures shaped by wind and tide captured by the artists, are moments that encourage reflection, reminding us of the beauty that is all around us, if we only care to see it.
“What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.” Leisure, by William Henry Davies.
More than literal depictions, the artworks on display carry gestures, whispers and delicate threads and often shout out loud ideas of belonging, heritage and transformation. The shoreline emerges as a symbol of being and becoming, a space where histories repose, even as they are turned into futures. Light and water serve as recurring metaphors, reflecting states of memory, serenity, and emotional depth. Across the exhibition, movement and stillness coexist: waves crash and recede, sunlight flickers on surfaces, and textures echo the rhythms of dunes and tides. There are moments of transition as the sun sets into the sea and footsteps silently beckon from the sands, nudging the guest for contemplation.
The city of Dubai appears not just as backdrop, but as metaphor - a place where ambition rises from history and where beauty is found in contradiction. Dubai appears not merely as a backdrop, but as a powerful metaphor: a city rising from heritage-rich sands, a place where ambition and memory walk hand in hand. The exhibition’s richness also lies in its multiplicity; a reflection of the diverse voices and practices of its participants who hail from South Asia, united by a shared inquiry into belonging and transformation. Together, the works produce a collective resonance, a reminder that spaces can hold stories as deeply as the people who inhabit them.
In the heart of a bustling metropolis, where the race against time is a part of life and ambitions are as expansive as the horizons beyond the sands, the exhibition offers a quiet space for reflection; an opportunity for visitors to ponder their own connections to heritage, land and belonging. It reminds one that every shore is a threshold, every wave an invitation and every grain of sand, a witness to the passage of time. The show stands as a testament to the strength of collaboration, the strength of collective vision, and the enchantments that emerge when heritage and belonging combine. Visitors are invited to experience the quiet poetry of a city that lives within the spaces between land and shore; a place that, like the artworks themselves, reminds us that belonging is not only about where we come from, but also about where we choose to stand, to reflect, and to dream.
Maria Lari is an artist who has shaped the Social Arts Gallery into a platform that brings together artists, brands and communities for meaningful, socially engaged events. Through exhibitions, workshops, and collaborative projects, Social Arts celebrates diversity and strives to create spaces where dialogue can flourish and connections can deepen. “With ‘Where Sun Meets Shore’, we aim to capture the joy and beauty of Dubai summers — where long, sunlit days meet ocean breezes, and the landscape itself becomes a living canvas,” says Lari. A Pakistani-Nepali artist and art promoter based in Dubai, she is in tune with the vibrancy of belonging and heritage. Through Social Arts and its initiatives, she weaves these ideas into spaces where heritage and emotion blend, allowing communities to find common ground and share ethereal moments of beauty.
FS Karachiwala is an accomplished art curator and cultural producer with a long-standing passion for building bridges between communities. Living and working between Dubai and Karachi, he has dedicated himself to nurturing connections across borders, creating platforms for dialogue that champion heritage and innovation. He is a recipient of the Creative Activism Award from the Cultures of Resistance Network - a testament to his commitment to using the language of art as a means for connection, understanding and social change.