The Diriyah Biennale Foundation announces the artists participating in the second edition of the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, opening on January 25, 2025. By juxtaposing contemporary and newly commissioned artworks with historical objects from Islamic cultures, the Biennale explores how faith is experienced, expressed, and celebrated through feeling, thinking, and making.
The Biennale presents works from over 30 artists from Saudi Arabia and from around the world, in both indoor and outdoor spaces. Saudi artist Muhannad Shono acts as the Biennale’s Contemporary Art Curator with Joanna Chevalier and Amina Diab as Associate Curators. Alongside Artistic Directors Julian Raby, Amin Jaffer, and Abdul Rahman Azzam he has commissioned new works to be installed in dialogue with historical objects.
The works of contemporary art reflect on the Biennale’s title And All That Is In Between, focusing not on absolutes or binaries, but rather collective ways of seeing, imagining, and reading. Visitors will encounter works that play with the perception of space, light, and time. Many of the artists are inspired by the eternal rules of nature and the sacred. At the same time, these are works that speak to the heart. The works address questions of faith and offer insights into the ways cultures endure in the context of the transformations taking place today in Saudi Arabia.
Throughout the five indoor exhibition galleries, new artworks engage in direct conversation with historical objects that range from religious artifacts to works on astronomy and mapping to jewels. Outdoors, beneath the canopy of the Western Hajj Terminal of King Abdulaziz International Airport, commissions respond to the theme of the garden in Islamic civilization. The works in this section, which is titled AlMidhallah (“The Canopy”), are concerned with the natural world and respond to the culture of Islamic gardens while addressing contemporary social and environmental realities. Visitors follow paths through four quadrants that are intended to inspire reflection, learning, meditation, and social encounters.
Participating artists*
Fatma Abdulhadi, Bilal Allaf, Nasser Alzayani, Ahmad Angawi, Abdelkader Benchamma, Gabriel Chaile, Saeed Gebaan, Louis Guillaume, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Bashaer Hawsawi, Hylozoic/Desires (Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser), Nour Jaouda, Tamara Kalo, Raya Kassisieh, Asif Khan, Lúcia Koch, Takashi Kuribayashi, Ahmed Mater, Mehdi Moutashar, Timo Nasseri, Hayat Osamah, Nohemí Pérez, Imran Qureshi, Anhar Salem, Arcangelo Sassolino, Slavs and Tatars, Iqra Tanveer and Ehsan Ul Haq, Charwei Tsai, Asim Waqif, Ala Younis, and Osman Yousefzada.
