2009

It’s Not You, It’s Me

Art

2011

Second Time Around

Art

2013

Mohammed Kazem: Walking on Water

Art

2014

Lest We Forget: Structures of Memory in the UAE

Architecture

2015

1980 – Today: Exhibitions in the UAE

Art

2016

Transformations: The Emirati National House

Architecture

2017

Rock, Paper, Scissors: Positions in Play

Art

2018

Lifescapes Beyond Bigness

Architecture

2019

Nujoom Alghanem: Passage

Art

2021

Wetland

Architecture

2022

Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim: Between Sunrise and Sunset

Art

2023

Aridly Abundant

Architecture

2024

Abdullah Al Saadi: Sites of Memory, Sites of Amnesia

Art

2025

Biennale Architettura

Architecture

Azza Aboualam

Azza Aboualam is an Emirati architect and curator of the National Pavilion UAE for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2025. She is an Assistant Professor at the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises at Zayed University, Dubai, UAE, and a Co-Founder and Director of Research       at HoleS     um Studio, an interdisciplinary architecture and design practice based in New York, USA, and Sharjah, UAE. She co-founded the studio in 2021 a few years after graduating from the Yale School of Architecture.

Her scholarly interests include the intersection of memory, architecture, and society in the Middle East and North Africa region. Aboualam worked with the UAE Ministry of Culture’s Architecture Initiative, and her field research, sketches, and writing were published in the book In Search of Spaces of Coexistence: An Architect’s Journey (2019), edited by Dr. Alamira Reem Al Hashimi and Adina Hempel. She also contributed research to Building Sharjah (2021), edited by Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi and Todd Reisz, and Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai (2020), written by Todd Reisz. While working in Sharjah’s Department of Public Works, Aboualam managed the design and construction of large-scale projects such as the Aga Khan Award–winning Wasit Wetland Center. In 2014, Aboualam was a Venice Intern at the National Pavilion UAE’s debut participation at the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia with the exhibition Lest We Forget: Structures of Memory in the UAE, curated by Michele Bambling.