Our first launch for 2026 is three stunning new additions to our Middle East Travel Collection. These vintage travel poster prints celebrate the city of Dubai, where the Stick No Bills Middle East Flagship Gallery in The Courtyard, in the Al Quoz art district, has been promoting place-centric, human-created poster art since 2024.
Our Dubai-based creative team has been working with Charlie Villagracia, winner of the 2025 No Bill Piece Prize for the Middle East, to capture the city’s distinctive character in three classic, Stick No Bills aesthetic, vintage-style travel posters. This authentic art collection offers retro Dubai wall art for residents, UAE diaspora and anyone seeking Dubai home decor that goes beyond what’s typical and expected.
Dubai is also where Stick No Bills was first conceived by Co-Founders Meg Gage Williams and Philip James Baber when they were living (and surfing!) in the city in the early 2000's.
Al-Ayyala: Honoring Emirati Cultural Heritage
This poster centers on one of the UAE's most significant cultural traditions. A group of men perform Al-Ayyala, the traditional Bedouin stick dance that has been part of Emirati celebrations for generations. They hold tambourine-style instruments called tar, moving in synchronized rows during this performance that UNESCO has recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Al-Ayyala is performed at weddings, national celebrations, and important cultural events across the Emirates. The dance originated with Bedouin tribes as a way to commemorate victories and significant moments, with the sticks representing spears and the coordinated movements symbolizing unity and strength. This heritage-inspired home decor draws from classic seventies travel poster aesthetics—bold color blocks in burnt orange, deep teal, and sandy yellows frame the dancers, creating ideal Dubai wall art for those who truly know the city.
Dubai Surf at Sunset Beach: Sunset at the Burj Al Arab
This poster brings us Dubai from the perspective of its evolving outdoor culture, capturing the fleeting moment when surfers catch waves at sunset in front of the Burj Al Arab. When a northerly wind pushes in, a clean line of swell forms right beneath the shadow of the iconic sail-shaped tower, offering wave catchers an entirely unexpected connection to nature right in the heart of the city.
The poster celebrates the spirit of Jumeirah's surf community—where desert air meets the Arabian Gulf, and some aspects of life still move to the rhythm of the waves and the sea. The color palette pulls from faded surf magazines and old travel brochures: sun-bleached blues, warm coral pinks, and golden yellows. The whole composition has the relaxed, optimistic energy of vintage Californian surf posters, relocated to the Arabian Gulf. Bold and unexpected, just like finding good surf in the middle of a city.
Dubai Creek: The Heart of Old Dubai
The third poster focuses on Dubai Creek, one of the city's most historic settings and the waterway that was the heart of trade and community long before the modern skyline existed. A woman relaxes at the water's edge with a cup of tea, watching an abra—the wooden water taxi that still glides across the Creek, ferrying passengers for one dirham.
This scene captures the unhurried side of life in Old Dubai. The Creek remains a key node in the Silk Road where sharing tea is still cherished, where the pace slows, where the wooden abras and dhows continue their centuries-old crossings between Deira and Bur Dubai. Behind the woman, the modern skyline rises on the opposite bank—a layering of old and new Dubai that happens along the Creek, where you can stand in the Al Fahidi Historical District and look across at contemporary glass towers.
The Middle East Travel Collection
These latest additions to our fast-growing Middle East Travel Collection can all be seen and purchased at the Stick No Bills Middle East Flagship Gallery in The Courtyard in Al Quoz, Dubai's creative district. As well as our vintage-style, contemporary creations, the Gallery also promotes vintage Middle East travel posters from international airline archives we have remastered under authorisation, ensuring they can be enjoyed for generations to come.
Posters created in the 1950s and 60s from airlines such as Middle East Airlines, Lufthansa, and the British Overseas Airways Corporation (precursor to British Airways) captured the optimism of early passenger jet travel, inviting a first generation of travelers to discover the region.
Our creative team and the artists we work with have lived in and been deeply immersed in the culture of Dubai, key to understanding both the region's heritage and its contemporary character. Our goal is to create new and exciting artistic representations of this part of the world for the people who live here and who are from here. Whether you are looking for gifts from Dubai for long-term residents, UAE souvenirs that capture authentic moments, or Middle East poster prints for the UAE diaspora that reflect time spent in the city, these three new additions capture the essence of this fearless, glamorous ‘City of Dreams’.
The entire Middle East Travel Collection is available to view and purchase online, with shipping worldwide from our Dubai gallery. For interior design, hotel and retail trade inquiries pertaining to Stick No Bills's Middle East collections contact info@sticknobillsonline.com ref "B2B".
