The director of Art Jameel, overseeing Jameel Art Centre in Dubai and Heyy Jameel in Jeddah, claims that running a noncommercial, non-governmental art organisation in the region allows her and her colleagues to ‘think in public’. Programming often reacts to events in wider society in an impressively up-to-date fashion: a retrospective for Gaza City-based collective Eltiqa in Dubai in February not only surveyed 20 years of resilient artmaking and pedagogical work but also included pieces created a week prior to the opening. The centre continues to host a residency for art conservationists, while also running the annual Night School, concerned with questions of urbanism, architecture and history in Dubai. It’s not all about the local, however: at the end of this year, the Dubai space hosted the second part of Thai arist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s retrospective. The smaller Jeddah space meanwhile hosted the latest Jameel Prize, recognising contemporary art influenced by Islamic tradition, and next year Carver curates Dana Awartani’s heritage-focused sculpture and video for the Saudi Arabia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.