National Pavilion UAE appoints Azza Aboualam as curator for its exhibition at 2025 Venice Biennale

Aboualam is the pavilion's first Emirati female curator

Azza Aboualam is an Emirati architect and an assistant professor at the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises at Zayed University. Photo: National Pavilion UAE

Azza Aboualam has been appointed curator of the National Pavilion UAE for next year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, becoming the first Emirati woman to hold the position.

The architect’s selection comes a decade after she interned at the pavilion during the 2014 Venice event. “I am delighted to see an alumna of the Venice Internship programme returning as curator 10 years later,” said National Pavilion UAE director Laila Binbrek. “This speaks to our continuing commitment to the arts and culture ecosystem in the UAE, and the ways the National Pavilion UAE nurtures both the UAE’s cultural legacy and its future.”

Aboualam's return to the National Pavilion UAE as curator brings her “full circle”.

She said: “As an intern, I was absorbing everything, learning from people, from every experience and interaction. I'm excited to be able to come back and be able to contribute in a very different way.”

A professor at Zayed University, Aboualam was selected following an open invite to academics and artists. A committee featuring figures from across the country’s creative sector reviewed the proposals.

Aboualam said her proposal was crafted carefully to reflect the knowledge and material culture of the UAE. Hinting at what the pavilion might be like, she said her research revolves around “local food production methods and its overlap with the architecture and built environment”.

Her proposal stems naturally from past and continuing research. She has worked with the UAE’s Ministry of Culture’s Architecture Initiative, publishing her field research in the 2019 book In Search of Spaces of Coexistence: An Architect’s Journey.

“In that book, I actually went to about 150 or 160 buildings around the UAE just to document them, just to see how architecture and society can overlap within a built structure or the theme of coexistence,” she said.

Aboualam has contributed as a researcher to Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai (2020) and Building Sharjah (2021). She is also a co-founder at the Sharjah and New York-based Holesum Studio, which she established in 2021 with fellow Yale University graduates Dimitri Brand and James Coleman. The studio draws from historical, sociological and environmental research to design objects and spaces that promote engagement with the wider environment.

There are parallels, between Aboualam’s past work and the research she is conducting for the National Pavilion UAE, chiefly in her explorations of environmental and communal coexistence.

UAE Minister of Culture Sheikh Salem bin Khalid Al Qassimi said the National Pavilion UAE would “showcase innovative research from the UAE, bringing fresh perspectives to the international stage. It is heartening to see our nation’s brightest minds and their compelling narratives resonating and engaging with people worldwide.

“The exhibition, a collaborative effort between the Ministry and the National Pavilion UAE, will showcase our nation's rich cultural legacy and forward-thinking approach in tackling global issues that concern us all.”