“It was challenging to select three artists from the large number of artists I was presented with. Like many creatives around the world, the young artists in the region are investing their efforts and turning their gaze on excavating their present, dealing with urgent matters of our time, be they environmental, social and/or historical issues. I very much look forward to working with the three selected artists, Alla Abdunabi, Maktoum Al Maktoum and Salmah Almansoori, and to guiding their visual voices, as well as developing a body of work in response to and inspired by Al-Ain as a source and as a canvas for new ideas.” - Issam Kourbaj, Curator, Beyond Emerging Artists 2025
The artists he is guiding in Abu Dhabi Art’s Beyond Emerging Artists program will exhibit their works at Manarat Al Saadiyat, Al Jahili Fort, Jebel Hafit, and Al Ain Oasis, before being shown internationally.
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Issam Kourbaj comes from a background of fine art, architecture and theatre design. He was born in Syria and trained at the Institute of Fine Arts in Damascus, the Repin Institute of Fine Arts & Architecture in Leningrad (St Petersburg) and at Wimbledon School of Art (London). Since 1990, he has lived and worked in Cambridge, eventually becoming an Artist in Residence at Christ’s College, a Bye-Fellow (2007-2011) and a Lector in Art.
In 2009, as part of Cambridge University’s celebration of its 800th anniversary, Issam was invited to design the sets for the play Let Newton Be! and for a contemporary dance piece Light Matters, which was presented in the University Senate House. His Cambridge Palimpsest, a puzzle box linking time and archaeology, was also published by Cambridge University Press as part of the celebrations and was presented to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge during their first official visit to Cambridge.
He is interested in collaborating with other creative science and humanity disciplines and has produced work using different forms of Camerae obscurae, inspired by Ibn Al-Haytham’s work on optics.
His work has been widely exhibited, collected, and exhibited in several museums around the world: Fitzwilliam Museum, Classical Archaeology Museum and Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Henry Moore Institute, Leeds; Wereldmuseum (formerly Tropenmuseum), Amsterdam; Penn Museum, Philadelphia; Brooklyn Museum, New York, among others.
His Dark Water, Burning World is in the permanent collection of the Pergamon Museum, San Diego Museum of Art and the British Museum. For the BBC’s ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects,’ Neil MacGregor (the former director of the British Museum) chose it as the 101st object.
Image is courtesy Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge
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This page was last updated in October 2025.
