Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation (ADMAF), in collaboration with the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), commemorated the success of the Proximities exhibition, a hallmark initiative held under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Founding Honorary Patron of Abu Dhabi Festival.
Proximities represented a major milestone as the first exhibition of UAE art at this scale in Korea and the largest display of contemporary visual art from the UAE ever presented in East Asia. Part of the broader Abu Dhabi Festival’s “Abroad Programme”, it was inaugurated on December 15, 2025, in Seoul and remained open until March 29, 2026, welcoming over 75,000 visitors.
The exhibition showcased over 110 works by 47 UAE-based artists, including 33 Emirati artists. It formed the second chapter in a three-year institutional collaboration between ADMAF and SeMA. This collaboration began with the debut exhibition, Layered Medium: We Are in Open Circuits, presented at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi in 2025, and explored Korean media-based practices from the 1960s to the present.
Both exhibitions, as well as the expansive public programme, attracted audiences globally, reinforcing the growing cultural exchange between Korea and the UAE. The initiatives have significantly deepened international engagement with the diverse art scenes of both countries.
The culmination of this collaboration was marked by the launch of two joint publications in March 2026. These were introduced by the curators, Maya El Khalil, Eunju Kim, and Kyung-Hwan Yeo, as comprehensive catalogues documenting both the Seoul and Abu Dhabi exhibitions. The publications serve as a permanent archive and a testament to the curatorial journey, providing a platform for artists, curators, and practitioners from each country to write about each other’s worlds, thus continuing the dialogue initiated by these landmark exhibitions.
Huda Alkhamis-Kanoo, Founder of ADMAF and Artistic Director of Abu Dhabi Festival, highlighted the exhibition’s capacity to bring together UAE and Korean artists in a vibrant meeting of ideas and bonds of culture, cultivating meaningful artistic dialogue and a lasting cultural legacy. She also noted that the exhibition “traced five decades of the emergence and evolution of contemporary Emirati art” through its three sections, celebrating a variety of artistic perspectives that reflected a spectrum of ideas, experiences, and creative trajectories.
“**Emirati artists preserved the authenticity of their visions while contributing to regional and global cultural discourse, bridging a rich heritage with a forward-looking future. Their works opened new interpretations and dimensions, embodying a vision that builds culture and strengthens human connection.**” (Huda Alkhamis-Kanoo)
The publication Layered Dialogues: We Are in Open Circuits explores Korean media-based practices from the past four decades. It features 48 works by 29 artists alongside essays, poetry, and curatorial statements. Its companion, Layered Dialogues: Proximities, captures five decades of Emirati contemporary art, facilitating a unique dialogue with the Korean context and encompassing over 110 works by 47 artists from three generations.
Curator Maya El Khalil expressed, “**Throughout this collaboration, we were driven by curiosity about what happens in moments of encounter. True exchange avoids telegraphing one scene into another and the publications also seek two-way transmission – situating UAE artistic practices in relation to Korean perspectives, and vice versa. Writers had an open-ended invitation to engage with the ideas proposed by each exhibition from their own vantage – no fixed topics or set briefs. To continue the dialogues in this experimental way – in Arabic, English and Korean – feels like the right kind of permanence.**”
Curator Kyung-Hwan Yeo said, “The exhibition and its catalogue share an organic, complementary relationship, each completing the other. For those who experienced the Layered Medium: We Are in Open Circuits exhibition firsthand at Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, I hope this catalogue serves as a vessel for cherished memories.”
Eunju Kim commented, “What we valued most in this collaboration was not simply introducing UAE contemporary art to Korea, but creating a process in which different cultural contexts could meet, be translated and be read anew. Proximities opened a new point of encounter for Korean audiences by presenting the diverse artistic practices of UAE based-artists, bringing different cultural experiences and sensibilities into dialogue.”
As a result of these exhibitions and ongoing institutional collaboration with SeMA, ADMAF underscores the UAE’s commitment to cultural dialogue and the strengthening of ties between Emirati and Korean artists. This ongoing partnership underlines ADMAF’s broader mission in cultural diplomacy, leveraging artistic exchange to build enduring people-to-people connections and reinforcing the UAE’s soft power strategy through meaningful engagement on the global stage.
Team V.4-EM-UAE
