ArtDayME: Caroline D'Almeida wrote on Yalla Abu Dhabi: For a long time now, the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery has served as the beating artistic heart of Abu Dhabi. At the helm of affairs is the visionary Maya Allison, Executive Director of the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery.

Through a successful symphony of exhibitions, she has continued to create art history in the emirate, a testament to the gallery’s commitment to pushing boundaries and redefining the role of an academic museum.

So naturally, on the cusp of its journey into the next decade, Maya has curated arguably the gallery’s most experimental exhibition yet, In Real Time.

A ‘living exhibition’ that evolves by the day, it stands as a collaboration between the artists, the keepers of the space and of course, the audience itself. She speaks of creating the future today, one where voices are amplified, and spaces transformed into arenas of dialogue. The exhibition then, was conceived as a refuge amid turbulent times.

“People who going through difficult times, and you’re helpless to help. One of the things that I found is how just being present makes a difference. And it seemed important right now, for there to be a space for people to be able to just be present with each other that doesn’t have to be a celebration or a distraction or entertainment. Let’s just like take a minute and take a breath. And that was sort of the beginning point of the exhibition,” Maya reflects.

 ^{Maya Allison, Executive Director of the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery}

To put it simply, the art continues to evolve by the day, with live performances incorporated into the exhibition such that no two days In Real Time will ever look or feel the same. For an undertaking as ambitious as this one, the Executive Director has gone above and beyond to ensure a diverse array of voices and artistic expressions.

From Sharjah-based Moza Almatrooshi to Bangladesh-born Rana Begum, she speaks with enthusiasm about the process of working with those old and new.

“Well, Chafa Gaddar someone I haven’t worked with before though she’s a fresco artist and has been doing fascinating work for a while. I thought she would be perfect when I was thinking about the wall idea, but the kind of work she’s doing is always in dialogue with the idea of the body; she thinks of the wall as a kind of skin. But also that she grew up in Lebanon and knows the comings and goings of difficult times, which always kind of just weaves into her work,” she shares.

From the outset, setting the stage for the future means Maya is keen to do work as unique as her space. An academic, non-collectable museum way of working is still at the core of the NYUAD Art Gallery while staying true to being experimental.

Parallely, says Maya, “We’re doing a sort of curatorial exploration of what is an exhibition, what makes an artwork? What is the space for? And these two things together are kind of unofficially what the first 10 years have been.”

Being on the frontlines of mapping art history in the region, as it were, is no mean feat. From the looks of it, however, Maya and her exceptional team at the gallery are tackling it with ease and optimism to boot. A significant presence at the cultural epicentre of Abu Dhabi, they continue to work with the likes of the Louvre Abu Dhabi or even the al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art to archive Arab history for future art historians.

So what keeps Maya and her unrelenting inventiveness going after all this time? Coming off the back of the massively successful Blane De St. Croix’s; Horizon to create something as unique as In Real Time, she reveals that it’s the diversity of the community that keeps her enthralled.

^{"Blane De St. Croix: Horizon" exhibition at NYUAD Art Gallery}

“It is what has kept me here for 12 years”, she says, adding, “Before I came here, I was the curator at Brown University. And before that, I worked at the RISD Museum right across the street from Brown. And the only people who came in were the people who already knew they liked the kind of art they were going to see. And then I came here, and we have a wonderful mix of people coming in. But you only get one shot, so one of the things I started to do was listen to my audience every chance I got. I want to hear what they’re seeing. And that changes how I understand what I’m doing.”

Her commitment to listening and learning from the gallery’s diverse audience as well as curators she works with is evident in each exhibition. Embracing feedback and engaging with varied perspectives, Maya goes above and beyond to foster a space where interpretations are fluid and conversations are dynamic.

By inviting new voices into the curatorial process and relinquishing control over artistic interpretation, she hopes to create a more nuanced and inclusive dialogue around art. Or as she puts it, to ensure ‘it’s not just my voice in the space.’

^{NYUAD Art Gallery celebrates 10th Year Since Opening with "In Real Time" exhibition}

Where curators take a step back to admire the finished product that is their exhibition, Maya Allison pushes the envelope with one that will evolve for months. As the UAE watches this artistic tapestry unfold, one can only wait in eager anticipation for the products from this laboratory for experimentation and discovery.