After Years of Investment in Arts Infrastructure, Dubai Grows Into Itself

It’s March as I write this, and Dubai is stretching like a cat after a nap. Vaccinations are rolling out at a furious pace and everywhere, there is a kind of manic, delirious optimism. At the end of January, I returned to my hometown after 15 years split mostly between Dubai and New York. I should have come back sooner. During college I would return in the summer, in those heady years post–financial crash when the city was constantly reinventing itself. I would land each time to see