The road to Abdullah Al Saadi’s studio winds through the rugged foothills of the Hajar Mountains, where the UAE's eastern coast meets the Gulf of Oman. The drive from Dubai to Khor Fakkan, where Al Saadi lives and works, is a passage through space and time. One moment, the car passes by surreal, futuristic property developments; the next, the landscape shifts into something timeless, spare, and unyielding. I accompanied Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi, the visionary curator and president of the Sharjah Art Foundation, and Bruce Johnson McLean, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain First Nations Curatorial Fellow. Both of them came to discuss Al Saadi’s project for the 25th Biennale of Sydney, which Al-Qasimi is leading as artistic director, with McLean as part of her curatorial team. 

Al Saadi, now in his late 50s, greeted us at the gate of the compound, just off an unmarked stretch of the mountainous highway, with the unhurried poise of someone who has spent a lifetime attuned to the rhythms of solitude. Born and raised in Khor Fakkan in 1967, he is a key figure of “The Five” conceptual artists who shaped the UAE’s contemporary art scene in the 1980s and ‘90s. He led us down a stone path to his studio, which he built himself adjacent to his childhood home. This is no sterile, industrial white cube, but a modest structure that feels like a personal museum of the ephemeral, where the boundaries between life, memory, and art dissolve. As we stepped inside, the air carried the scent of earth and history. It is a repository—every square inch is occupied by artifacts: stacked metal chests painted in vibrant hues, scrolls unfurling like ancient maps, stones engraved with cryptic symbols, and wooden bookshelves warping under the weight of accumulated knowledge.