The year of the fire horse: Where to be this weekend in the Middle East

The Chinese Zodiac called 2026 the "Year of the Fire Horse." Will this be the year we learn to run track, jump over obstacles, and make bold moves that lead to personal breakthroughs? Or is it the year we grow long, luscious hair and sit in green fields munching on carrots?

The year's first exhibition lineup takes you to alternate realities and poses those sober questions.

Every Thursday, L’Orient Today, in partnership with The MYM Agenda, guides you through events across the Middle East that are actually worth your time.

What to do this weekend in Beirut:

Bassam Kahwagi’s first solo exhibition in five years invites you to look — and then look again.

In "Paintings 23-24-25," opening this Thursday at Saleh Barakat Gallery, Kahwagi uses the grid, line and colors, and separate entities. Even though his paintings boil down to geometric formulas, they translate into forms and stories that exist between what is and what is no longer an object.

For more information, click here.

What to do this weekend in Cairo:

"Between Sea and Sky," by painter Katherine Bakhoum, on view at Safar Khan Gallery, is a journey into the Arab world's history of peaceful landscapes and trabeesh.

As a Lebanese person, you cannot help but see the parallels it shares with Deir al-Qamar's iconic wax museum of Lebanon's historical figures. While Bakhoum's eye for detail makes the transportation even more realistic, the paintings' superpower is the tranquility they evoke.

For more information, click here.

What to do this weekend in Amman:

The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts is teaming up with the Embassy of Mexico in Jordan for “Tales in Clay: From Mexico to Jordan." The exhibition marries the two ancient cultures (and the ones in between) by inviting its audience to take inspiration from its extensive collection of historical clay works and create their own. Instead of looking at our heritage as something a million years old, we get to remember that its an ongoing practice in our everyday lives.

For more information, click here.

What to do this weekend in Muscat:

Muscat's Royal Opera House has unveiled the schedule for its first season of the year. Secretly, I can't help but find that the elegance of opera is a guilty pleasure. Though we've moved past the stereotypical image of chic women in short hair and opera cigarette holders, the show itself will always deliver in stories of drama, pain, and gharam wa intiqam.

For more information, click here.

Didn't find what you were looking for? Stay up to date with all these events and more everywhere in the Arab world through the MYM Agenda, available on our website here.