Shows to See in December 2025

Cosmogrammes at Institut des Cultures d’Islam 

Cosmogrammes showcases the collaborative, multidisciplinary work of French-Moroccan artist Sara Ouhaddou, highlighting her engagement with traditional crafts and collective creativity. The exhibition brings together embroidery, ceramics, glass, jewellery, drawings and photography, combining recent pieces with previously unseen works produced alongside artisans in Morocco, France, Japan and the United States. Works include, her Partiton series of glazed ceramics, with interlocking froms inspired by traditonal design motifs, stained glass installations and more.

Cosmogrammes runs until 15 February 2026

Of Land and Water: Works from the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection at Kalba Ice Factory 

Taking place at the Kalba Ice Factory, the exhibition explores how ideas of homeland form at the intersection of land and water. Centred on the Malay concept of tanah air, meaning homeland, it considers its historical transformation during Indonesia’s War of Independence and the effects on those displaced or unrecognised by national ideologies. Curated by Jiwon Lee with Andulla Aljanahi, Amal Al Ali, Souraya Kreidieh and Shahad Mushed, the show examines how borders shape movement and how knowledge, culture and histories circulate across territories. Works exhibited by artists from the collection include Babak Afrassiabi and Nasrin Tabatabai’s video Plate It with Silver (2015) which explores the idea that spirits or supernatural beings that move freely along the shores of the Strait of Hormuz and Walid Sitti who portrays homeland as a fragile space marked by collective memory. 

Of Land and Water runs until 31 May 2026 

Columna Rota/Broken Column at the Museo de la Ciudad de México

Columna Rota/Broken Column takes shape across the Museo de la Ciudad de México, the Church of Jesús Nazareno and the nearby streets, bringing together a wide group of artists to examine rejection as a working method. The exhibition combines installations, performances, archival material and spatial interventions that address exclusion in personal and public life, featuring more than 125 artists and collectives such as Asim Abu Shakra  Siah Armajani, Slavs and Tatars and more. 

Columna Rota/Broken Column runs until 22 February 2026

slow burn at Beirut Art Center 

Selected from twenty proposals submitted to an open call by Beirut Art Center, the exhibition invited emerging artists from Lebanon and the wider region to explore the many forms of fire. Rather than presenting completed works, the focus centres on the process of artists relocating their studios to the centre or collaborating remotely to develop site-specific projects that evolved over time. Curated by Danielle Makhoul, the show uses the concept of “slow burn” to highlight latent energy, anticipation and transformation without reaching a full blaze. Works range from explorations of violence and darkness to intimate practices of mourning, remaining in constant flux.

slow burn runs until 28 February 2026

Who is Afraid of Ideology? Part V: Right of Passage at Fundació Joan Miró

Curated by Carolina Jiménez, Marwa Arsanios’s Who is Afraid of Ideology? Part V: Right of Passage, co-produced with Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Artium Museoa, explores the intersections of land, law and inherited power through a cinematic lens. Human and animal characters, rural landscapes and urban environments converge to examine how ideology structures perception, property and social relations. Through its dialectical approach, the film creates a provisional space for contested subjectivity, collective memory and reflection, inviting audiences to engage with the tensions and legacies that continue to shape social and political life.

Who is Afraid of Ideology? Part V: Right of Passage runs until 18 January 2026

In That Same Hour at Darat al Funun 

In That Same Hour gathers 19 artists and collectives to engage with moments shaped by geopolitical and social upheavals. Focusing on the crisis in Gaza while resonating with wider experiences of displacement and solidarity, the exhibition spans multiple spaces at Darat al Funun, integrating personal testimony, archival documentation and community-based projects. The show traces histories that resist erasure, offering audiences a space to reflect on the ongoing challenges that connect us across time and place. Works on display include, Adnan Yahya’s Human Rights (2006), a mixed media installation by Raed Ibrahim entitled Remnants That Continue (2025) as well as clay works by Algerian artist Rachid Koraïchi. 

In That Same Hour runs until 31 May 2026

The Sunken Boat at ARoS 

Marking its Nordic debut, The Sunken Boat presents five works by Anna Boghiguian. The exhibition charts the artist’s long-standing fascination with maritime history, rising oceans and the accelerating climate emergency, immersing visitors in installations that weave together memory, myth and political reflection. The show includes To the Lighthouse (2019), a series of 23 acrylic-on-metal paintings, which reinterpret themes from Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel of the same name. Another highlight of the exhibition is The Sunken Boat: A Glimpse into Past Histories (2025) installation, which immerses visitors in an underwater world of a floating diver, glass shells and fish cut-outs, paired with sea recordings and a site-specific mural.

The Sunken Boat runs until 19 April 2026

Secession Ornamentation at Secession

In Secession Ornamentation, Turkish artist Cevdet Erek transforms sound into architecture, turning vibrations into spatial structures that engage with the body. Drawing on Adolf Loos’s Ornament and Crime (1908), Erek reconceived ornamentation not as a decoration but as an act of tuning, aligning and inhabiting space. Loudspeakers mounted on the institution’s façade convert its symmetry into an audible architecture, while wood reliefs featured in the first floor’s Grafisches Kabinett gallery, inspired by Braille symbols, foreground touch and bodily orientation. Erek’s works dissolve boundaries between listener and composer, body and building, highlighting the politics of perceptions, control and care.

Secession Ornamentation runs until 22 Febraury 2026

Check out more shows on Art Planner

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