Summer travel often brings the usual museum circuit on to a traveller's radar, but several of this season’s most interesting exhibitions are looking towards the Arab world.Across Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific, regional histories and artists are being foregrounded through archaeology, contemporary installation, sound, film, painting and questions of memory. Paris alone could fill a weekend, with exhibitions on Lebanon, Libya, Egyptian history and objects from the Al Thani Collection. Venice, meanwhile, is hosting a wide range of Arab and Middle East-linked artists as part of the Biennale.Here are the Arab-related exhibitions outside the Middle East to plan a trip around this season, listed by region and closing date.EuropeCaptives: Art and Slavery in the Modern Mediterranean, ParisThis exhibition examines slavery across the Mediterranean in the 17th and 18th centuries, looking at the lives of Muslims and Christians enslaved on both sides of the sea.The Arab World Institute describes it as the first exhibition to explore that history across more than three centuries. Its focus includes North and West Africans enslaved in Europe, tracing their lives as galley workers, servants, translators, musicians and assistants to artists.Until July 19; Arab World Institute, ParisSunflowers by Tarek Atoui, DublinAtoui has spent the past decade developing musical instruments that make use of organic materials. Photo: Royal Commission for AlUlaInfoLebanese sound artist and composer Tarek Atoui continues his exploration of sound as something physical, spatial and shared.At the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Sunflowers uses instruments, vibration and movement to create an encounter shaped by listening, rhythm and the body. The exhibition originally had two phases, with Souffle Continu closing in April, making Sunflowers the remaining work on view this summer.Until July 19; Irish Museum of Modern Art, DublinDrama 1882 by Wael Shawky, ParisThe film-opera had its premiere at the 2024 Venice Biennale. Photo: Sfeir-Semler GalleryInfoEgyptian artist Wael Shawky revisits the Urabi revolt and the beginning of British colonial rule in Egypt through Drama 1882.The film-opera turns the events of 1882 into a staged work among theatre, music and cinema. First shown at the 2024 Venice Biennale, the work is now being presented in Paris as part of the Grand Palais’s Mediterranean season.Until July 26; Grand Palais, Paris Byblos: Lebanon's Millennial City, Paris One of Paris’s summer exhibitions looks to Byblos, one of Lebanon’s oldest cities and a long-standing centre of Mediterranean exchange.Organised in collaboration with Lebanon’s Directorate General of Antiquities, the show brings together objects connected to the city’s archaeological history, including materials linked to trade, writing, religion and Byblos’s role across successive civilisations.Until August 23; Arab World Institute, Paris The Lost Paintings: A Prelude to Return, BristolFouad Tomb's The Garden, 2024, is part of The Lost Paintings: A Prelude to Return. Photo: Fouad TombInfoThe exhibition gathers works by 53 artists from Palestine and its diaspora.Each artist responds to the title of one of the paintings lost in a 1947 exhibition by Palestinian-Lebanese artist Maroun Tomb in Haifa. The project looks at memory, absence, displacement and the imagined reconstruction of works that disappeared amid the upheaval of the 1948 Nakba.June 19 to September 27; Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol Rogue Agents of History by Larissa Sansour, AmsterdamPalestinian artist Larissa Sansour's exhibition includes the premiere of A Sunken Tale of Losses Delayed. Photo: Lenka Rayn HInfoPalestinian artist Larissa Sansour brings together film, photography, installation, personal heirlooms, film props and historical museum objects in Rogue Agents of History.Her work often moves between Palestinian memory, speculative fiction, archaeology and imagined futures. The exhibition includes the premiere of A Sunken Tale of Losses Delayed, commissioned by the World Museum, alongside In the Future, They Ate from the Finest Porcelain and Familiar Phantoms.Until September 27; World Museum, AmsterdamCemetery of Martyrs by Dala Nasser, The HagueLebanese artist Dala Nasser’s Cemetery of Martyrs transforms the museum into a symbolic graveyard.The exhibition includes a large-scale installation connected to mourning, remembrance and the legacies of cultural figures from across the region. Nasser’s work often uses found objects, landscape, architecture and traces of conflict to explore how histories are carried through place.Until October 11; KM21, The Hague Libya, Heritage Revealed, ParisThe exhibition looks at Libyan history through photographs and videos connected to decades of French-Libyan archaeological work.The show covers sites including Leptis Magna, Apollonia, Bu Njem and Surt, and also addresses the illicit trafficking of archaeological objects that has threatened Libyan heritage since 2011.Until October 20; Arab World Institute, Paris Over, under and in between by Mona Hatoum, MilanAt the Prada Foundation, Beirut-born Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum has created a site-specific exhibition across the foundation’s Cisterna space.Over, under and in between is built around three recurring forms in Hatoum’s work: the web, the map and the grid. Together, they continue her long-running focus on instability, borders, danger and the precariousness of everyday life.Until November 9; Prada Foundation, Milan Arab pavilions and artists at the Venice BiennaleThe National Pavilion UAE's latest exhibition at Venice Biennale features work from six artists. Photo: National Pavilion UAE - Venice BiennaleInfoThe 61st Venice Biennale includes several Arab and Middle East-linked pavilions and artists.Saudi Arabia is represented by Dana Awartani, whose installation draws on mosaic references from heritage sites in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, among other places across the Arab world. The UAE pavilion, titled Washwasha, brings together Mays Albaik, Jawad Al Malhi, Farah Al Qasimi, Alaa Edris, Lamya Gargash and Taus Makhacheva to explore migration, technology, oral histories, language, the body and identity.Syria’s pavilion features Sara Shamma’s The Tower Tomb of Palmyra, while Lebanon is represented by Nabil Nahas. Qatar is also taking part, with Untitled 2026 (A gathering of remarkable people), conceived by Rirkrit Tiravanija and featuring Sophia Al-Maria, Tarek Atoui, Alia Farid and Fadi Kattan. Australia's pavilion also has a regional link through Lebanese-born artist Khaled Sabsabi.Until November 22; various venues, Venice Canicula, VenicePresented by the In Between Art Film Foundation, Canicula brings together eight new video installations commissioned for the Venice Biennale.The exhibition includes work by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, the Jordanian-born artist whose practice often uses sound to examine violence, memory and testimony.Until November 22; Ospedaletto Complex, Venice Animalia: Bestiary from the Al Thani Collection, ParisAnimalia: Bestiary from the Al Thani Collection looks at how animals, real and imagined, have appeared across cultures and periods.The objects in the exhibition explore animals through craftsmanship, symbolism, mythology, courtly culture and collecting. Its range places objects from different geographies and eras in conversation through a shared visual language.July 1 to January 10, 2027; Hotel de la Marine, Paris Eltiqa: How to Work Together?, DublinThe exhibition focuses on the Gazan artists’ collective Eltiqa.It includes Mohamed Abusal, Abdel Raouf Al-Ajouri, Mohammed Al-Hawajri, Raed Issa, Dina Matar and Sohail Salem. It is curated by The Question of Funding, produced in collaboration with Art Jameel, and will tour to Dublin from Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai.August 21 to March 28, 2027; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Asia-PacificMandy El-Sayegh: For Theresa, SeoulMandy El-Sayegh, who is of Palestinian and Chinese heritage, is showing For Theresa at Space K in Seoul.The exhibition draws on archives, maps, calligraphy, banknotes and the legacy of Korean-American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, bringing together fragmented histories through painting, installation and archival material.Until June 21; Space K, SeoulSaudi artist Alia Ahmad’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong is rooted in the desert landscape around Riyadh.In Time, A Bloom uses painting to explore memory, transformation and the emotional, cultural and historical complexity of place, with works inspired in part by desert flowers.Until June 27; White Cube, Hong KongDrama 1882 by Wael Shawky, SydneyWael Shawky’s Drama 1882 is also on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.The exhibition is the Australian premiere of the Egyptian artist’s film installation about the Urabi revolt and the beginning of British colonial rule in Egypt, presented through Shawky’s stylised blend of opera, theatre and cinema.Until June 29; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney In Absence and in Presence / Haig Aivazian, GuangzhouAranya Art Center is presenting In Absence and in Presence: Works from the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection, alongside the first solo exhibition in China by Lebanese artist Haig Aivazian.In Absence and in Presence brings together more than 70 works by 28 artists from West Asia, South Asia and Africa, marking the largest presentation of the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection in Asia to date.Aivazian’s exhibition features work from his ongoing cartoon-video installation You May Own the Lanterns, but We Have the Light. His practice looks at artificial light, computation, law, surveillance and the ways power shapes public life.Until August 30; Aranya Art Center GuangzhouI Am Hymns of the New Temples by Wael Shawky, Hong KongAt M+, Wael Shawky’s I Am Hymns of the New Temples places masked performers among the ruins of Pompeii.The work uses the ancient city as a meeting point among Egyptian, Greek and Roman histories, exploring creation myths, national narratives and the ways history is staged and reshaped over time.Until October 25; M+, Hong KongNorth AmericaGreater New York 2026Emirati artist Farah Al Qasimi is exhibiting work at this year's Museum of Modern Art PS1. Photo: Carolyne Loree TestonInfoThe latest edition of Greater New York includes Emirati artist Farah Al Qasimi.The exhibition brings together more than 50 artists living and working in the New York area, with works addressing contemporary life in the city, surveillance, economic precarity, digital culture and shifting technologies.Until August 17; MoMA PS1, New YorkOrientalism: Between Fact and Fantasy, New YorkOrientalism: Between Fact and Fantasy includes the work by artist Jean-Leon Gerome including Bashi-Bazouk, 1868–69. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of ArtInfoThe Met’s Orientalism: Between Fact and Fantasy examines 19th-century ideas of “the East” and the relationship between art, empire, fantasy and cultural exchange.The exhibition brings together about 180 objects from 12 Met departments, including paintings, drawings, photographs, illustrated books, textiles, garments, ceramics, metalwork and works from the Islamic world. It is the first exhibition at The Met to explore Orientalism as its central focus.June 12 to February 28, 2027; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York