How Manar Abu Dhabi Attracted Over 800,000 Visitors in Its 2nd Edition

As dusk settled across Abu Dhabi and Al Ain earlier this month, light lingered a little longer than usual. Not in the sky, but across mangroves, oases, urban edges, and heritage sites, where art briefly rewrote the landscape. Manar Abu Dhabi, the public light art exhibition organised by the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi, has officially concluded its second edition, closing on 4 January 2026 after welcoming more than 800,000 visitors.

Running under the theme The Light Compass, this year’s edition expanded both geographically and conceptually, positioning light as a guide, memory, and medium. Across 22 site-specific installations, the exhibition invited audiences to move through Abu Dhabi’s natural and cultural environments with renewed awareness, tracing the emirate’s ancestral relationship with illumination as a tool for navigation and connection.

For the first time, Manar Abu Dhabi extended beyond the capital to Al Ain, activating UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including Al Qattara Oasis and Al Jimi Oasis. The expansion marked a significant evolution for the programme, deepening its dialogue between contemporary artistic practice and the UAE’s historic landscapes. Alongside anchor locations such as Jubail Island and Souq Al Mina, the exhibition transformed familiar settings into contemplative encounters after dark.

The artistic programme brought together 15 Emirati and international artists and collectives from 10 countries, each responding uniquely to place. Works ranged from immersive projections and sculptural light forms to large-scale installations integrated seamlessly into their surroundings. Artists including Abdulla Al Mulla, DRIFT, KAWS, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Khalid Shafar, and Shaikha Al Mazrou contributed pieces that explored orientation, rhythm, reflectio,n and movement, encouraging visitors to slow their pace and engage with the environment through light.

Curated by Artistic Director Khai Hori alongside curators Alia Zaal Lootah, Munira Al Sayegh and Assistant Curator Mariam Alshehhi, the exhibition’s curatorial vision prioritised experience over instruction. Rather than prescribing meaning, The Light Compass created space for interpretation, allowing visitors to form personal relationships with the works as they moved through landscapes shaped by water, desert, and urban life.

Beyond the installations themselves, Manar Abu Dhabi’s public programme strengthened its role as a cultural platform rather than a static exhibition. Talks, workshops, and performances explored intersections between art, technology, and public space, while wellness and climate-focused programming reflected broader conversations around sustainability and community engagement. Highlights included live performances by international and regional artists, as well as the immersive WE ARE ONA dining experience, which marked the collective’s first appearance in the Middle East.

As part of the wider Public Art Abu Dhabi initiative, Manar Abu Dhabi continues to demonstrate how public art can operate at scale while remaining sensitive to place. By embedding contemporary works within the emirate’s landscapes rather than isolating them, the exhibition highlighted Abu Dhabi’s growing identity as a cultural capital rooted equally in heritage and transformation.

With its second edition now concluded, Manar Abu Dhabi leaves behind more than photographs and fleeting impressions, but a recalibrated way of seeing the city after dark, where light becomes a language, and the landscape itself becomes a canvas, briefly illuminated, then returned to stillness.