But We Cannot See Them: Tracing a UAE Art Community, 1988-2008 is a survey of the UAE’s avant-garde community, which formed in the 1980s. This is the first comprehensive sourcebook for one of the most important contemporary art communities in the UAE’s history. It centers on a group sometimes called the five, at an intersection of visual artists, writers, and filmmakers based in the UAE. Its members identified with a new culture of encouraging radical, formal and conceptual experimentation. Eventually, some of these artists founded the celebrated Flying House.

Edited and with an introductory survey essay by Maya Allison, it includes essays by Aisha Astoby and Adel Khozam, and a 20-year timeline by Bana Kattan. The curatorial team conducted and publishes here interviews with members of the community, including Hassan Sharif, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, Abdullah Al Saadi, Mohammed Kazem, Hussain Sharif, Vivek Vilasini, Ebtisam Abdulaziz, Cristiana De Marchi, Nujoom Alghanem and Khalid Albudoor.

This publication comes in two editions: English, or Arabic.

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