Every self-respecting fair and festival now has its fringe, and as soon as Art Dubai launched last year it had its younger satellite in the Creek Art fair, located across the sprawling city in the cluster of scrubbed-up old houses that makes up the quaint Bastakiya district beside the big slow river, where precariously laden dhows still busy up and down. It is a stark contrast to the eerie world of skyscrapers and multi-lane highways that makes up the new city. And although the Bastakiya is almost a toytown version of an ancient Arab town, scoured spotless, the courtyards and loggia'ed rooms of the traditional houses make a pleasant backdrop to a range of contemporary work, mainly from the Middle East. In the largest of several dozen galleries clustered here, XVA Gallery, shady courtyards host films, talks and performances as well as a variety of artists' rooms. And not all are young and unknown: among those showing is Charles-Hossein Zenderoudi, whose calligraphically inspired abstracts already fetch seven figures.

Calligraphy is a strong theme here. At the Dubai International Financial Centre (the fair's chief sponsors) is a show imported from the British Museum entitled Word into Art , which displays the museum's contemporary work from the region, and in the grand spaces of Art Dubai proper some of the same artists make an appearance. Hassan Massoudy's lyrical interpretations of Arabic characters are on display under the aegis of the October Gallery, one of only a few London galleries at the fair.