The travelling design fair NOMAD frames collectible design and art with an exceptional series of culturally resonant locations. We speak to its founder and director, Nicolas Bellavance‑Lecompte, about NOMAD’s first edition in the Middle East, and we round up the essential highlights.
“The entire fair feels like a moment of encounter,” says its founder and director, Nicolas Bellavance‑Lecompte. “The mood is confident, cross-cultural, and forward-looking.”
While those principles have underpinned all NOMAD fairs since their inception in 2017, they are especially true of the Abu Dhabi edition – the first outside Europe and their most global to date. And nowhere are they expressed more eloquently than in the inspired choice of venue: Zayed International Airport Terminal 1, a masterpiece of Arab Modernism designed in the 1970s by Paul Andreu, and now decommissioned.
“It is one of the most iconic Modernist structures in the region, yet it has remained largely unseen by a cultural audience,” says Bellavance‑Lecompte. “Its expressive structural clarity creates a rare architectural statement in the Gulf. It also carries the history of the first encounters with Abu Dhabi for generations of travellers.” He adds: “It has a powerful sense of arrival, and an emotional resonance that aligns with the way NOMAD approaches site specificity.”
The architectural gem sets the scene for NOMAD’s most ambitious edition so far – and one that opens the door to an increasingly important region for the design world. “Abu Dhabi allows us to expand the scale and ambition of NOMAD,” says Bellavance‑Lecompte. “This edition is more global in its reach and more architectural in its presence.”
This is reflected in the mix of galleries. Heavyweights such as Milan’s Nilufar and London’s Gallery FUMI are present, as are exciting newer galleries such as Bureau of Innovation. But there is also an exceptionally strong Middle Eastern cohort, on-site and off-site, with an emphasis on collaboration with designers, artisans and organisations from Abu Dhabi and across the UAE.
“The partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi enables us to create a strong cultural ecosystem around the fair,” notes Bellavance‑Lecompte, “including access to museums, modern heritage tours, and institutional engagements across the city.”
With a market that is becoming increasingly global and narrative-driven, NOMAD – with its nomadic nature and ethos – is better placed than most to both answer this need and to shape it. “Collectors increasingly seek work with context, with cultural depth, and with a meaningful relationship to place,” says Bellavance‑Lecompte. “These shifts are reflected strongly in Abu Dhabi.”
“If NOMAD can contribute to expanding the narrative of the region’s design landscape, this edition will have achieved something meaningful.”
Nicolas Bellavance‑Lecompte, Founder and Director, NOMAD
Many exhibitors, he notes, are presenting site-specific pieces or commissions rooted in regional craftsmanship and materials. “The edition demonstrates how collectible design can operate as cultural soft power, building bridges between regions,” he says. “If NOMAD can contribute to expanding the narrative of the region’s design landscape, then this edition will have achieved something meaningful.”
Here are five highlights at NOMAD Abu Dhabi that are not to be missed:
1. The Setting: Zayed International Airport Terminal 1
NOMAD is no stranger to beautiful locations – past editions include Capri, Venice and St. Moritz. But in Paul Andreu’s masterpiece of Arab Modernism, NOMAD has found the perfect bridge between Europe and the Gulf, between mid-century and contemporary, and an effective manifestation of the tension and harmony between past and the future and the local versus the global.
In such places, inspiration thrives. The concrete Modernism of the airport, which was conceived in 1974 and opened in 1982, might have inherited its architectural DNA from the tubes and circles of Andreu’s Charles de Gaulle in Paris, but the arabesque entryways, desert setting, Islamic geometric motifs and iconic cascading centrepiece root it entirely in the UAE. The terminal, which ceased operating as an airport in 2023, has found a worthy afterlife.
2. Shifting Terrains, UAE
Part of NOMAD’s off-site programme, Shifting Terrains is an exploration of the evolving creative landscape of the UAE, hosted at Jumeirah Saadiyat Island. Curated by Arnaud Morand in partnership with NOMAD, the showcase features work by artists from across the Middle East and beyond, including Mary-Lynn Massoud and Georges Mohasseb from Lebanon, KAMEH from the UAE, and Neda Salmanpour from Iran. Its Shifting Terrains title reflects what its organisers describe as “a generation reimagining place through material, process, and imagination,” and traces the “evolving creative landscape of the United Arab Emirates.”
Highlights include Vessels by the Palestinian-Lebanese Datecrete Studio, founded by Sara Farha and Khaled Shalkha, which specialises in objects created from datecrete – a sustainable cementitious material made using date pits. There’s a resonance to Vessels – a display cabinet for objects – which makes it extraordinarily evocative, and shining a light on talent such as Datecrete Studio is a major part of what makes fairs such as NOMAD so vital for the global design industry – and what makes visiting them so rewarding.
Other highlights from Shifting Terrains include Sandscapes by the architect and designer Neda Salmanpour – a trio of sculptures crafted and inspired by the red sand found in Mleiha, Sharjah.
3. DEPARTURES, UAE
Set within the departure hall of Zayed International Airport, in partnership with Etihad Airways, DEPARTURES – created in partnership with Etihad Airways – transforms the terminal’s former Etihad Hub into a new platform for large-scale art and design projects. The project reimagines the airport as a “world within worlds” where art bridges local identities, history and global exchange. In many respects, DEPARTURES encapsulates NOMAD’s talent for ideating conversations between its venues and the art and design community.
Highlights include a striking set of artworks by US artist Christopher Joshua Benton, a large-scale work in neon by Abdullah Al Othman from Saudi Arabia, and the monumental work Kun by Lamya Gargash from the UAE (pictured at head of article).
4. Mondavilli Scagliola, Milan
Milan’s Mondavilli Scagliola gallery is exhibiting Kalyka, an achingly cool piece by the fashion designer Lavinia Fuksas and the Milanese architect and designer Pietro Franceschini. Kalyka fuses an Italian 1970s cubist sensibility with a precision-engineered metal and enamel finish that roots it in the contemporary. The gallery specialises in 20th-century design, including fine works by Italian designers Gio Ponti and Gabriella Crespi, together with ground-breaking contemporary works.
5. Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council, Sharjah, UAE
Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council is a pioneering Sharjah-based organisation dedicated to empowering female artisans and reimagining Emirati craft heritage. Irthi is bringing to NOMAD the Tilad Collection – a collaboration with the Mexican artist and designer Ricardo Rendón. The collection fuses the centuries-old Emirati craft of Talli embroidery and Safeefah weaving with the vivid palette of Mexico, expressed through pine wood, volcanic stone, and hand-woven palm fronds. It’s a bold cultural fusion which has resulted in highly desirable objets.
NOMAD Abu Dhabi, 19–22 November 2025, Terminal 1, Zayed International Airport
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