Kutubna Cultural Center archives feelings in ‘Nothing Worth Mentioning’ exhibition

A new photography exhibition, Nothing Worth Mentioning, opens at Kutubna Cultural Center, Madina Avenues, Nadd Al Hamar, Dubai, on September 5 and runs through September 27. It features over 40 works by 16 photographers of different nationalities, all based in the UAE, focusing attention on finding beauty and meaning in the small moments of everyday life, personal rituals, routines, brief encounters, simple gestures and humble places, often overlooked. It reminds us that sometimes the things we dismiss as ordinary are the things that tell us who we are, where we come from, and what we remember.

The exhibition is curated by Ola Allouz, Dubai-born visual artist, award-winning photographer, Fujifilm brand ambassador, and founder of @foto.uae. Allouz’s idea for the exhibition grew from taking groups of photographers on trips to the village of Kumzar. It is an isolated coastal fishing village located in the Musandam Governorate of Oman, right on the Strait of Hormuz. Accessible only by boat, it is famous for its distinct culture.

Over six trips, the photographers took many photographs, but for Allouz, the moments around the table stayed with her the most, which included sharing food, stories, laughter, and conversations. This led to the question at the heart of the exhibition: “Can a feeling be archived?” For Ola, small details became the most beautiful and meaningful part of the community experience.

Abdulla Al Ghurair – Every Friday Afternoon.

The exhibition features works by Abdallah Alastad, Abdullah Al Ghurair, Abdulla Alblooshi, Aisha Esmaeilzadeh, Akhilesh Nair, April Ann Vocal, Fatima Al Amiri, Fatima Albudoor, Judite Serafim, Latifa Almazrouei, Maitha Alqassmi, Maria Khodzhamberdieva, Mohamed Al Alawi, Ola Allouz, Preschelle Ann Bigueras and Sara Al Shamsi. Additionally, Emirati writer Ayesha Alyassi also joins the exhibition with her Therapy Mail Club, an interactive installation that invites visitors to write, send, and share messages related to the heart of the exhibition’s theme in a mailbox within the exhibition.

Among the works, Abdallah Alastad turns his lens to the ritual of preparing tea and the company with whom we share it. His images follow the sequence from the istakanahs (small tea glasses), and bayalahs (the glasses used to serve and pour tea) to the glimpse of light along the glass, the movement of a hand, and the small spoon announcing that the first sip is ready. What might appear insignificant becomes a visual language of habit, hospitality and companionship. Fatima Al Amiri explores human connection through Fwalah, the Emirati tradition of sharing fruit and food with guests. By centering her focus on hands gathered around a shared plate, she captures ordinary gestures that show generosity and kindness.

Fatima Albudoor – She and the sea.

The works of Abdulla Al Ghurair and Mohamed Al Alawi explore how deep bonds can grow through simple, repeated moments. Al Ghurair reflects on his weekly Friday visits with his late grandmother Afra, who loved gardening and flowers. He would bring her flowers from his home garden and share stories from his week with her. The rose is a simple reminder of their time together. A similar bond appears in Mohamed Al Alawi’s work, which follows, over six years, the close relationship between his seven-year-old Noah and Leo, the family cat who was already part of the household before Noah was born.

Outside the home, other works turn the camera toward outdoor scenes. In By the Sea, Fatima Albudoor presents a woman gazing toward the horizon in Dubai’s golden hour light, capturing the relationship between the woman and the sea. Near an old mosque along the RAK Corniche, Abdulla Alblooshi stops to capture a man’s weekly routine of feeding, grooming and playing with stray cats. While Aisha Esmaeilzadeh focuses on a worker resting amid the surrounding busy life across Dubai Creek.

Meanwhile, beneath one of Sharjah’s oldest mosques, Judite Serafim photographs an empty chair holding folded sajjadas (prayer mats), showing how a simple object and place can carry traces of presence and spiritual activity. Ola Allouz (b. 1983, United Arab Emirates) explores the beauty of everyday life, culture, and human connection through her photography. She is the founder of @foto.uae, a creative community connecting artists across the UAE, and Archiving the Now, a photographic project documenting contemporary cultural life in the UAE, which has produced two photography books to date.

Ola Allouz – In Memory, Not in the Story.

Kutubna Cultural Center was established in 2023 as an independent bookstore, literary hub, and art venue for Dubai and the Gulf region. It offers an inclusive community space to enjoy books, art, specialty coffee, and cultural events. The centre celebrates the accomplishments of Khaleeji, Arab, Middle Eastern, North African, and Muslim writers, poets, thinkers, artists, and researchers and amplifies these voices through lectures, readings, guided conversations, workshops, and multiple activities for people of all ages.

“Kutubna strives to make creative and scholarly pursuits accessible to people who are traditionally at the margins and we work especially hard to make cultural events easier for mothers with young children to attend,” the centre says. Kutubna has hosted notable exhibitions, including Women in Contemporary Arab Art, which featured major artists such as Louay Kayali, Adham Wanly, Salah Taher, Khaled Al-Jader, and Najat Makki and was highlighted by outlets such as Vogue Arabia; The Art behind the Stars, which showcased Jamal A. Rahim’s portraits of iconic figures including Umm Kulthum and Marilyn Monroe and One Hundred Years of Painting: Arab Art from 1916 to 2017, which presented the works of significant modern and contemporary artists such as Saliba Douaihy, Fateh Moudarres, Farghali Abdel Hafez, and Georges Sabbagh.