Art Jameel, an organisation that supports artists and creative communities, presents The Storyteller and the Obedient Tide, the first solo exhibition in the Gulf by Palestinian artist Jumana Emil Abboud at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai’s hub for contemporary art and ideas.
Opening on January 27, 2026 through June 28, 2026, the exhibition brings together a constellation of works shaped by Abboud’s deep engagement with storytelling, folktales and ritual, and her attunement to land and the water sources such as springs, wells and rivers that sustain it. To mark the exhibition’s opening, the artist will present a powerful Spoken Word performance from 6.30 pm, reflecting on her profound connection to ancient folktales, rituals and the deep, enduring waters that hold these stories. The exhibition is curated by Art Jameel’s Exhibitions Curator, Indranjan Banerjee.
Rooted in the lineage of Palestinian folktales, Abboud’s practice traces how stories endure and transform across time, inhabiting landscapes, shaping personal histories and collective memory, and forging enchanted relationships to the land. ‘The Storyteller and the Obedient Tide’ invites visitors into a poetic terrain where narrative, myth and lived experience converge, offering reflections on endurance, survival and belonging.
The exhibition features several new commissions, many of which were produced over the past two years, during art residencies in Japan including Aomori Contemporary Art Centre (2024) and Sapporo Tenjinyama Art Studio (2025) and a joint residency with the V&A Jameel Fellowship and Cirva (2024 -2025) between London and Marseilles.
New commissions, including Kohl in the eyes of Zarqa’ and The Premonition Cups are shown for the first time in this exhibition and mark the artist’s first works in glass. Kohl in the eyes of Zarqa’ recalls the tale of ‘Zarqaʾal-Yamāmah’, a legendary seer of omens. The work carries two meanings bound to ʿEin—the eye and the water source—and acts as talismanic vessels that remember, foresee and hold stories across time. Unlike the glass discs in Kohl in the Eyes of Zarqa’, mirrored discs that hold a reflection, The Premonition Cups are glass funnels designed to allow light to pass through them, suggesting openness, reflection and the act of retelling.
Additional new commissions, including The Fishermen, Lamb-Monster and Something That Fell from the Sky and Came Out of the Well introduce figures such as water deities, monsters and seashells. These works draw on oral histories from both Japan and Palestine, highlighting shared narratives of survival sustained by kinship, memory and belief.
Older works shown include a selection of drawings, beeswax talismans, wood figurines, embroidered textiles and a neon light work shaped to form the Arabic letter Ein, meaning eye or water source. Jumana’s films Hide Your Water from the Sun (2014-2017, 8 min 45s.), made in collaboration with photographer Issa Freij, will screen over the period of the exhibition.
The artworks gathered in ‘The Storyteller and the Obedient Tide’ appear as traces and fragments left behind the ebb and flow of the tide. Drifting across time and geography, between fact and mythology, they are grounded in the context of the Palestinian struggle for liberation and return, offering a portrait of endurance. Mirroring the exhibition’s title, the tide’s devotion to the moon’s pull and the storyteller’s slow, careful telling prompt its central question, how do we carry light across oceans, across ruins, across silence, without allowing it to be extinguished?
Nora Razian, Art Jameel Deputy Director and Head of Exhibitions and Programmes, said: “Jumana Emil Abboud’s practice offers a rare attentiveness to how stories are carried through land, water and memory across generations and geographies. ‘The Storyteller and the Obedient Tide’ brings together folktale, ritual and lived experience to reflect on endurance and belonging. We are honoured to present Abboud’s first solo exhibition in the UAE and to share a body of work that speaks to the quiet, persistent power of storytelling as a form of resistance and renewal.”
Press release from Jameel Arts Centre
Image: Jumana Emil Abboud. I Feel Everything. 2022. Video still. Photography by Issa Freij. Image courtesy of the artist
