New season of Arts AlUla sees a flowering of fresh initiatives

Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

Arts AlUla and the French Agency for AlUla Development (Afalula) have launched the new season of the AlUla Artist Residency Programme. It is a total of six programmes – five residencies and one alumni event – taking place during the 2023/2024 season. They bring artists and designers from all over the world to participate in a diverse range of residencies, spanning visual arts and performance, botanical and landscaping, heritage and innovation, and more. During the AlUla Arts Festival ((Feb. 9 — Mar. 2), visitors will get the first opportunity to see some of the creations of the Residency Programme, since they preview within the festival itself. The residencies will be showcasing two exhibitions at the Festival, the exhibitions being for Visual Art Residency and Design Residency.

The AlUla Visual Art Residency (Oct. 2023 – Feb. 2024), with seven artists taking part, bridges art, science and local narratives.

The participating artists are Maitha Abdallah (United Arab Emirates), Reem Al Nasser (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), Hugo Servanin (France), Joel Spring (Australia), Marlon De Azambuja (Brazil), Bianca Bondi (South Africa) and Guillaume Bouisset (France).

Curation and artists’ liaison is led by independent curator Maryam Bilal. The residency highlights the collaboration between artists and on-site scientific experts, as well as representatives of the local community.

It focuses on research, offers production opportunities and aims to draw inspiration from the area’s ancient heritage and more recent developments there. It contemplates issues such as interspecies connections; human vs. non-human interventions; and local folklore and narratives. Artist processes and outcomes will be showcased in the exhibition at the Arts Festival in February 2024.

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The AlUla Design Residency, also live from October 2023 to February 2024, has the following creatives taking part:  Bahraini Danish – Collective (Bahrain/Denmark), Batool Al Shaikh, Maitham Al Mubarak, Christian Vennerstroem Jensen, Hall Haus – Collective (France), Abdoulaye Niang, Sammy Bernoussi, Teddy Sanches, Zakari Boukhari, Studio Raw Material - Collective (India), Dushyant Bansal, Priyanka Sharma, Leen Ajlan – (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and Leo Orta (France). Curation and designers’ liaison is led by Ali Ismail Karimi, Principal at Civil Architecture.

The Design Residency is a five-month programme in AlUla that brings together designers and experts on-site. Participants, either individuals or collectives, will work across multiple disciplines such as infrastructure development and architectural design, exploring public realm interventions and urban furniture, sustainability and local building materials.

Their findings, pieces and prototypes will be showcased in an exhibition at the Arts Festival in February 2024. The Arts, Landscaping, Botany and Agriculture Residency runs from January 2024 to May 2024, with six artists taking part.

 Artists and Designers at AlUla Artist Residency Programme.

Their names will be announced soon. The residency will gather internationally renowned artists, engaging in research at the intersection of art, landscaping, botany, and agriculture. The residency serves as the foundation for highlighting the future contemporary art museum in AlUla. It will enable creatives to initiate research for public art commissions, linked to the museum’s gardens, besides celebrating AlUla’s botanical diversity.

The AlUla Heritage and Innovation Residency runs from May 2024 to June 2024, with six artists, whose names will be announced soon, taking part.

The programme focuses on exploring the fusion between art and digital technology, past and future, in the context of a land rooted in more than 200,000 years of human history. It will emphasise research over production, with an open studio replacing a formal exhibition. Creatives are expected to absorb cultural artefacts or natural elements, blend them with their imaginations and techniques, and write the scenarios of an imagined future.

Long-term Residencies run from December 2023 onwards, with three artists taking part: Tarek Atoui (Lebanon), Gregory Chatonsky (France) and Ayman Zedani (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), as a continuation of his previous research-based residency in January – March 2023. The new format has been developed to offer one of the most precious assets for artists, namely, time. Artists from the region and abroad will live in the oasis-city of AlUla in the timeframe of over a year, which includes field trips, and bring out their creations.

Two of the selected artists will take part in the contemporary art museum in AlUla’s pre-opening programme, and the third artist will then be selected to participate in a separate project tied to a signature ecolodge hotel (Dar Tantora), which opened in January.

Alumni Circle for Artists, April 2024, will serve as a dialogue forum for feedback and reflections on the residency’s impact, and how better to embed arts and create bigger growth through AlUla.

Arts AlUla within The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU), focuses on transferring the talents of the Saudi nation and the local AlUla community into viable social and economic opportunities. It is a key part of the Journey through Time masterplan, bringing together 15 different landmark destinations for culture, heritage and creativity across AlUla.

The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) was established by Royal decree in 2017 to preserve and develop AlUla, a region of outstanding natural and cultural significance in Northwest Saudi Arabia.

The French Agency for AlUla development (Afalula) was founded in Paris in 2018, following an intergovernmental agreement signed by France and Saudi Arabia that year.

The agency’s mission is to mobilise French knowledge and expertise and to gather operators and companies in the field of culture and heritage, archaeology, architecture, environment, tourism, hospitality, infrastructure, education, security, agriculture, botany, for the sustainable management of natural and cultural resources.