Quoz Arts Fest: A Weekend That Belonged to the Dreamers

Inside Concrete, Forest Dancer and the Path to Pure Creation felt less like an art installation and more like a doorway into someone else’s imagination. Light pulsed, sound wrapped around you, and for a second, the real world faded into the background. Then you stepped out, still blinking from the shift, and found yourself in front of Lamya Gargash’s A Corridor of Books, where golden fabric wove through endless shelves, like a secret being whispered between stories.

The music pulled people in without asking permission. Omar Offendum’s poetry hit like a slow burn, each word carving its way into the air. Emel Mathlouthi sang like she had something to prove, her voice climbing higher, deeper, refusing to settle. Ÿuma slowed things down, their folk melodies soft and deliberate, a reminder that sometimes, the quiet moments are the ones that stay with you the longest. But then the night shifted, and so did the sound. 

House of Yanos turned the energy up with deep house beats that made it impossible to stand still. Dubai City Sound’s all-female choir stunned with harmonies so sharp and clean they felt like they might crack the night open. BOUMPH came in with hip-hop that wasn’t interested in being polite, and DJ Hend stitched together Afrobeats, old-school R&B, and Arabic classics into something you didn’t realize you needed until you were already lost in it.

Somewhere between the music and the art and the feeling that you were missing something amazing just around the corner, there was the food. Not just a side act, but an experience in itself. What The Food by Alserkal turned meals into something to linger over, flavors bold enough to demand attention, small bites that somehow felt like entire stories.

By the time the weekend ended, nobody really wanted to leave. Maybe it was the conversations still unfinished, the canvases still drying, the way creativity didn’t feel like something separate but something you could reach out and touch. Quoz Arts Fest has never been about watching from a distance. It pulls you in, shakes you up, leaves a mark. And for those two days, it felt like the city belonged to the artists, the dreamers, and the ones who weren’t afraid to get lost in the chaos.

If you were there, you felt it. If you weren’t – well, you’ll know better next year.