A new exhibition titled "What We Left in the Sandbox" opens on November 6 at the Rizq Art Initiative in Abu Dhabi and runs through January 10. The show brings together Emirati artist and author Reem Al Mubarak with curator, architect and researcher Azza Aboualam, who shaped the project's concept.

Rather than telling a straightforward story about growing up, the two artists approach childhood through texture, material and sensation. Visitors will find aluminium chairs cast from real childhood objects and hung on the walls, sand structures large enough to walk into, sheets of bubble wrap imprinted with bicycle tyre tracks, an unsolvable metal puzzle built around a memory of a grandfather, and a sand castle whose interior is scaled precisely to a child's eye level.

Al Mubarak spent a full year researching how sand composition changes across the UAE, collecting samples from different regions that vary in colour and texture. Those regional differences are woven directly into the artworks, turning ordinary sand into something closer to a map of shared memory than a raw material.

The show adds to a wider shift in Abu Dhabi's independent art scene, where solo and two-person exhibitions by Emirati women artists have been gaining more space in galleries and cultural spaces in recent years. For families looking for something different to do in the capital this winter, the exhibition offers a rare chance to see childhood recreated from a child's own point of view rather than filtered through adult nostalgia.