In a first for UAE Unlimited, this year's exhibition includes commissioned works of poetry by four exceptional young Emirati poets, Shamma Al Bastaki, Hassan Alnajjar, Ahmed Al Manaai and Ali Almaazmi. They were each paired with one of this year's commissioned artists to produce poetry inspired by the artwork and born in a spirit of experimental and collaborative creativity.

This year's development of reaching out into the realm of poetry is a promising sign of a maturing art institution coming into its own and beginning to build bridges with the UAE’s wider creative community.

When poetry juxtaposes its abstract worlds, and words intertwine with colors and shapes perceived in art, the concept of identity, if we try to identify it in these works and poems, splits in different directions, and becomes an artifact that belongs to the future.

This exhibition adheres to the idea of deriving a new concept of the meaning of identity for young people today, not only through art and poetry, but also in extrapolating patterns and ways of thinking and looking at the world and the self, the relationship with the other and the idea of existence, time and space.

Further, the juxtaposition of poetry and visual art creates a complex artistic identity that may seem hybrid to some, but it is based on a complex originality in its composition.