Beneath Sharjah’s golden dome lies a constellation of wonders that opens onto the vast universe of the Islamic world.

Most visitors to Dubai never make it to the end of the Red Line, but those who do find something the city doesn’t advertise: the remains of a world’s fair where three pavilions still stand to make their case for the future.

To wander is to notice what others have grown too familiar to see. In Observers of Change, it is the artists and creatives who are perhaps the most discerning observers of all, chronicling a nation’s transformation through their art and eye.

Wandering through Expo City Dubai, I didn’t expect to find Interwoven, an exhibition that explores the threads of connection through the lens of contemporary art.

At Ishara Art Foundation in Dubai, Urdu Worlds draws you into the worlds of Zarina and Ali Kazim, where the Urdu language becomes a wellspring of memory, imagination, and art, and you find yourself wonderfully lost.

Somewhere between outer space and a sound bath, between a library of endangered species and a perfume made from your personality, the Museum of the Future asks one simple question: what kind of future are you building?

What happens when the deities and spirits of the Himalayan peaks come down from the mountains and stumble into the modern world? Tsherin Sherpa’s latest solo exhibition, Endless Flow, has answers.

As you wander from chased metalwork to marble inlay, from jade carvings to exquisite jewellery, and into miniature paintings that seem to hold the whole world in the width of your palm, Treasures of the Mughal Court leaves today’s creatives with an inexhaustible well of inspiration.

A landmark exhibition on Islamic art, Mamluks: Legacy of an Empire shows how a sultanate turned authority into artistry: the precision of metalwork, the confidence of calligraphy, and a design language of its own.

Dubai’s Art Season opens with Sikka Art & Design Festival, as art and culture breathe creativity and innovation into the historic quarter of Al Shindagha.