For a first Alserkal visit, choose two galleries on a Monday–Saturday afternoon. For an evening, book an Alserkal Cinema Akil screening and fit the galleries in before closing. For Art Week, choose the particular exhibition or event first. Each plan has a different timetable, and a ticket for one experience does not cover the others.
The useful distinction is between the Avenue and the spaces inside it. You can come to explore the public lanes, but each gallery, cinema and creative business sets its own hours. An exhibition visit, a workshop and a film ticket also buy different experiences.
This guide offers three ways to plan the day: a gallery afternoon, galleries followed by a booked film, or a visit around the announced November Art Week. Pick the plan that fits your interests first, then build your arrival and bookings around it.
Checked on 8 November 2026. Exhibition dates, screening examples and the Art Week programme below are date-specific; use the linked operators for your intended visit.
Choose your version of Alserkal
| Plan | When it works | Cost and booking | Main point to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two-gallery afternoon | Monday–Saturday, after 11am, while the named shows run | Avenue entry is free; organised activities have separate terms | Ishara closes at 7pm; The Third Line closes at 7pm |
| Galleries and a film | Gallery opening hours followed by your chosen session | Buy a separate Cinema Akil ticket | Select Alserkal Avenue, not 25hours Hotel |
| November Art Week | Detailed programme: 15–22 November 2026 | Check the event's admission and registration | A talk, walk or opening has its own start time |
| Sunday visit | A specifically confirmed business or event | Depends on that programme | Ordinary Sunday access is not published for the two featured galleries |
Alserkal is in Al Quoz's industrial area. Its warehouse setting is part of the experience: you move through outdoor lanes between indoor destinations. Comfortable shoes, weather-aware timing and a small selection of stops make the visit much easier than trying to cover every name on the directory.
1. Start with the right hours and the right kind of entry
Alserkal publishes general hours of 10am–7pm every day, while explicitly noting that individual businesses have their own opening times.
For the gallery route in this guide, Ishara Art Foundation opens Monday–Saturday, 10am–7pm, and The Third Line opens Monday–Saturday, 11am–7pm. Arriving after 11am brings both into the same afternoon plan. Their published schedules do not provide an ordinary Sunday gallery route.
The Avenue publishes free public entry. Keep paid experiences separate in your budget: a cinema screening, a meal, an art purchase or a booked activity is an additional choice. Special programmes and festival editions can have their own admission or registration terms, so use the actual event listing when an event is your reason for coming.
A good first plan needs only two anchors. Choose the exhibitions you want, look up their warehouse numbers and opening days, and check that the shows run on your date. Then browse the rest of the Avenue as time and interest allow.
alserkal.onlineOpening HoursCheck general opening hoursVisit website
alserkal.onlineAlserkal Avenue | A Community for Contemporary Art & Homegrown ConceptsUse the Avenue directoryVisit website
2. Build a gallery afternoon around two different kinds of looking
Two exhibitions can make a satisfying visit when they ask you to look in different ways. Ishara and The Third Line offer a useful pairing in the current programme: moving image and landscape at one, colour and material at the other.
The order is yours. If you want to settle into a film work first, start at Ishara. If colour and textiles are what brought you, begin at The Third Line and give that exhibition your freshest attention.
Ishara: leave time for the moving image
At A3, Ishara Art Foundation presents contemporary art of South Asia through exhibitions and a wider programme of research, talks and learning.
Its current exhibition, The sky held it, the earth remembered, is scheduled through 15 December 2026. Works by Shahana Rajani, Rohini Devasher and Sarker Protick connect landscape with memory through film, installation and photography.
One visit-changing detail is the running time of Rajani's three-channel Lines That World a River: 14 minutes 46 seconds. If it interests you, make time for the work to unfold. A quick glance at three screens gives a different experience from following the relationships between the images.
Devasher's suspended silk panels and Protick's photographs of a changing Dhaka neighbourhood offer a change in scale and medium. You can carry a question from one part of the exhibition into another: how does an environment hold a record of the lives and changes around it?
Published hours: Monday–Saturday, 10am–7pm; Ramadan timings may vary.
Current Ishara exhibition · Visitor details
InstagramInstagramOfficial InstagramVisit website
InstagramIshara Art Foundation on Instagram: "NOW OPEN | The sky held it, the earth remembered ‘The sky held it, the earth remembered’ is now open at Ishara Art Foundation. The exhibition engages three artists from across South Asia in a dialogue about the memories carried by land, water and sky. S…Installation previewVisit website
The Third Line: move around the work
At Warehouse 78, The Third Line's current Rana Begum: Taking Form runs through 24 November 2026.
Large suspended wool tapestries, linen paintings, watercolours and wooden panels explore colour across different surfaces. The woven ribbed textiles reveal patterns differently as you move around them, giving you a simple way to begin: look, change position and compare what you see.
After the time spent with moving images at Ishara, this can feel like a different kind of attention. Scale, texture and your position in the room become part of the visit. Leave enough space to look from several angles without touching the work.
Published hours: Monday–Saturday, 11am–7pm.
The Third LineRana Begum | 23 September - 24 November 2026Current Third Line exhibitionVisit website
The Third LineContactVisitor detailsVisit website
InstagramInstagramOfficial InstagramVisit website
InstagramThe Third Line on Instagram: "Rana Begum’s (@ranabegumstudio) ‘Taking Form,’ her fifth solo exhibition with The Third Line, is available to explore in full through our Online Viewing Room. For those unable to visit in person, the OVR brings the exhibition to you. It features a conversation…Colour-study previewVisit website
How long to leave
For a first visit, we would set aside roughly two to three hours for two galleries, the lanes and a break. That is a planning suggestion, not an official tour duration. A film installation, a long conversation or an exhibition that catches you can easily change the pace.
Choose less if you have less time. One exhibition seen properly is a stronger plan than four rushed entrances. After the listed shows end, choose their replacements from the galleries' current programmes before following the same route.
3. Add Cinema Akil when you want a fixed point for the evening
Cinema Akil is an independent cinema platform whose Alserkal home is Warehouse 68. A booked screening gives an otherwise flexible gallery afternoon a clear destination and time.
The important booking choice is the venue. Cinema Akil's public listings include its Alserkal cinema and its 25hours Hotel One Central location, as well as particular outdoor screenings. A film appearing on the site does not establish that it is showing at Alserkal.
Choose the film and Alserkal venue first, then the date and session. Check the language, subtitles where relevant, running time and age classification for your group. Leave a proper gap between gallery closing and the film if you want to eat or take a break.
A checked ticket example
For Rocky at Cinema Akil in Alserkal Avenue, Thursday 12 November 2026 at 9.30pm, the booking summary checked on 8 November showed:
- One ticket: AED50
- Convenience fee: AED4
- VAT: AED2.70
- Total: AED56.70
That is a specific single-ticket example, including its displayed fee and VAT. It is not a universal price for every Cinema Akil screening or festival.
The official film page lists 119 minutes and English language. A 9.30pm start plus that running time reaches about 11.29pm, before any trailers or delays. Leave time to exit, reach the station and catch the train in your direction. Do not assume general Metro opening hours guarantee a usable final connection; check your journey or arrange a taxi.
Cinema Akil's booking page describes seating as unassigned and first-come, so arrive early enough to settle in. Its online terms state that film tickets are sold without returns, exchanges or cancellation, with no refund for an incorrect selection. Checking the venue as carefully as the film title is worthwhile before paying.
The cinema's published working hours are not a promise of continuous screenings. Use the actual session calendar.
InstagramInstagramOfficial InstagramVisit website
InstagramCinema Akil on Instagram: "Two cinemas. Plenty of reasons to leave the house. This week, join us at Alserkal Avenue for HOPE, THREE COLORS: RED, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. At 25hours, discover WINGS OF DESIRE and PARIS, TEXAS in 4K restorations, alongside BEFORE SU…Dated multi-venue programme visualVisit website
The selected Instagram post covers 3–8 November at both cinema locations. It illustrates the programming; use the cinema's booking page for the film, venue and date you choose.
4. Choose Art Week for a visit shaped by a wider programme
An ordinary gallery day and Alserkal Art Week offer different ways to explore the same neighbourhood. Art Week brings new exhibitions, conversations and guest projects into one programme, making the calendar part of the attraction.
The detailed Smouldering programme lists 15–22 November 2026, including a closing weekend on 21–22 November. The homepage banner says 15–21 November, while the detailed programme and the official Concrete announcement include 22 November. Use the individual event listing to confirm the day and joining arrangements, especially for the closing Sunday.
Concrete and History Otherwise
A central announced exhibition is History Otherwise: Women Modernists from the Arab World, presented at Concrete in partnership with Barjeel Art Foundation and curated by Suheyla Takesh and Rémi Homs.
The programme names artists including Baya, Samia Halaby, Inji Efflatoun and Etel Adnan, creating an opportunity to see different contributions to Arab modernism together. Choose this as an anchor if you are interested in the region's modern art, then build gallery visits around the exhibition's confirmed daily access.
Concrete is a programmed venue. A named exhibition gives you a reason and date to visit; its place on a map does not mean the same exhibition is available throughout the year.
What else changes the day?
The announced Art Week programme includes seventeen new gallery exhibitions, Majlis Talks curated by Moataz Nasr, and moving-image work on The Yard screens presented by the Chanel Culture Fund.
Promises and Scars, presented by George Al Ama and Fann À Porter, brings together work by Sliman Mansour from the 1970s to the 2020s. The organiser also announces film screenings, slow art walks and children's gallery tours for the closing weekend.
Choose one or two of those elements rather than treating the whole programme as a single drop-in activity. A talk, a walk and a screening can have different times, capacities and joining arrangements. Check the individual listing for registration, admission and suitability before adding it to your day.
A family interested in a children's gallery tour should start with that tour's actual meeting time and age guidance. A visitor coming for a talk should leave the surrounding gallery choices flexible. This is where a programme-led visit earns its extra planning: one well-chosen event can introduce a different way of seeing the Avenue.
InstagramInstagramOfficial Avenue InstagramVisit website
InstagramAlserkal Avenue on Instagram: "History Otherwise: Women Modernists from the Arab World in partnership with the Barjeel Art Foundation opens in Concrete on Sunday 15 November as part of Alserkal Art Week. Drawn from the collection of Barjeel Art Foundation, the exhibition brings together m…History Otherwise exhibition visualVisit website
5. Get the arrival right
Alserkal's published arrival guide identifies entrances from 17th Street, 6A Street and First Al Khail Street in Al Quoz 1. Use the current directory or map to find your first warehouse after entering.
Metro and the final connection
The nearby Red Line stop is being renamed Garmin, from ONPASSIVE, and was previously called Al Safa. RTA’s September announcement says signs, apps and announcements are changing through the end of November 2026. Alserkal’s arrival page still uses Onpassive, so recognise both names when matching the guide to your journey planner.
The Avenue identifies bus 110 from the adjacent Al Safa Bus Terminus as its connection. RTA’s current nol terms list a flat AED2 fare for route 110 and say monthly nol passes do not cover it. Keep that fare separate from the Metro leg and check the live route before travelling.
Alserkal estimates around five minutes by taxi, ten minutes by bus or thirty minutes on foot from the station. Those are the destination's planning estimates, not live traffic or departure predictions. Check the current RTA journey for your date and return time, especially when a late film is part of the plan.
The final walk matters in warm weather. If you want to arrive ready to spend time looking at art, choosing the bus or a short taxi connection may make more sense than using up your energy before the first gallery.
Driving and parking
The detailed visitor guide says parking is restricted inside the Avenue, with more than five hundred RTA spaces in the immediate vicinity. It identifies parking zone 364C and a large parking area approached from 6A Street.
Follow the signs at the space where you park and allow time to walk to the entrance. Public entry to the Avenue does not make the journey or parking free. If you are heading for a screening, leave enough time for parking and finding Warehouse 68 before the film begins.
Three simple plans to take with you
For a relaxed first afternoon: arrive after 11am on a Monday–Saturday, see Ishara and The Third Line in the order that appeals, and take a break between them. Confirm that both current exhibitions are still running on your date.
For art followed by a film: book an Alserkal screening first, work backwards to the gallery closing times, and leave a gap for food and finding the cinema. A late film needs its own return-transport plan.
For Art Week: choose the exhibition, conversation or organised walk that matters most to you, check its exact joining arrangements, and leave the rest of the visit open. The current shows in this guide and the forthcoming Art Week programme are different calendar choices.
Whichever version you choose, let one discovery have some time. Alserkal is most rewarding when a gallery, a film or a conversation becomes the reason you remember the day.
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