The National's magazine ran a profile of Hashel Al Lamki by writer Nasri Atallah ahead of the artist's presentation at Art Dubai in May 2026, tracing his path from an art-inclined childhood in Al Ain, through private tutoring at home and an exploratory programme in New York arranged via UAE University and the American Embassy, to study at Parsons School of Design.
The piece follows Al Lamki's research into his family's history on the historic Spice Route, tracing great-grandparents who lived in Zanzibar before the 1964 revolution scattered the family across the Gulf, East Africa and Asia. Atallah describes how the artist folds this genealogy into a practice he calls "spice punk," reimagining old trade routes through found objects and reclaimed materials, and notes recent residencies in South Korea, China and Singapore that have extended his interest in Gulf-Asia exchange. Work by Al Lamki sits in the Barjeel Art Foundation and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi collections; the article previews a new, community-based piece he was preparing for that May's fair, staged at Madinat Jumeirah.
For Hashel Al Lamki, the profile marks his practice widening from landscape and memory towards collective, participatory forms, and it points readers directly to Within Me, Art Dubai, the 2026 group presentation in which his new work appeared alongside pieces by Irene Scheinmann, Rema Ghuloum and Randa Maddah.
