Asia’s largest contemporary art fair begins with creatives and galleries from across Middle East and North Africa represented
Art Basel Hong Kong opens its 2026 fair to the public today, with galleries from and representing the region using the platform to deepen relationships with Asian collectors, curators and institutions.
Running until Sunday at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, the event brings together 240 galleries from 41 countries and territories. More than half of this year’s exhibitors operate spaces across Asia-Pacific, underscoring the fair’s role as a regional meeting point as much as an international market event.
For galleries representing artists from the Middle East and North Africa, that regional role is a central part of the appeal. Hong Kong offers access to not only collectors, but also curators, institutions and biennale networks across Asia.
“This is our sixth year here in Art Basel Hong Kong,” Tunisian gallerist and collector Selma Feriani tells The National. The founder of Selma Feriani Gallery, which is based in Tunis and London, adds: “We’ve been introducing our artists to the community here in Asia slowly but surely. We steadily place our artists in Asian collections with returning collectors and newcomers every year. There is an interest and curiosity towards our programme and artists.”
Feriani says that visibility has also been reinforced by the growing presence of Mena artists she represents in major exhibitions across the region. “We currently have Massinissa Selmani participating in Sydney Biennale and Monia Ben Hamouda in Taipei Biennale,” she says. “It makes our presence here stronger.”
At this year’s fair, her gallery offers art from across the region and the world, describing the presentation as one centred on memory, material histories and the transmission of cultural knowledge across geographies and generations, with works spanning painting, textile, glass and marble.
Tunisian art collector and gallerist Selma Feriani is exhibiting multiple Arab artists at Art Basel Hong Kong 2026. Photo: Paul Mesneger
Among the artists on view is Tunisian-Italian artist Hamouda whose practice draws on symbolism, ritual and inherited forms. Sara Ouhaddou, a French-Moroccan artist, works across textiles, ceramics and mosaics, often examining cultural exchange and the shifting meanings of objects. Saoudi Ait Khay, a Moroccan artist based in Tunisia, weaves traditional Moroccan wool into abstract compositions shaped by memory and landscape.
