Across sandstone valleys and ancient oases, eleven artists reimagined scale, sound and sustainability in a landscape shaped by wind, water and geological time.
Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Imole Red. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
I had long hoped to experience Desert X AlUla in person, so travelling to the oasis town for its fourth edition felt like a long-anticipated arrival. Contemporary artworks were once again dispersed across valleys, canyons and palm-filled oases, set against a landscape so vast it continually shifted one’s sense of scale. Organised by Arts AlUla in partnership with Desert X as part of the AlUla Arts Festival, the 2026 edition unfolded through Wadi AlFann and nearby oasis sites, where sandstone cliffs, wandering light and desert winds shaped each encounter.
Under the title Space Without Measure, the exhibition took its cue from Kahlil Gibran’s writings on boundlessness, imagination, spirit and terrain intertwined. Co-curators Wejdan Reda and Zoé Whitley, working alongside founding artistic director Neville Wakefield and 2026 artistic director Raneem Farsi, approached AlUla as more than a setting. The land acted as a collaborator. Distances felt elastic, horizons expansive, and the act of walking between installations became part of the work itself.
Mohammed AlSaleem, The Thorn and AlShuruf Unit. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
Reda spoke of engaging the “philosophical registers” of a landscape defined by immeasurable expanse. In AlUla, where ancient watercourses carved through rock and cultivated palm groves signalled centuries of habitation, that sense of infinity felt grounded in history. The artworks seemed to emerge from their sites rather than sit upon them.
Basmah Felemban, Murmur of Pebbles. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
Environmental consciousness shaped the edition in tangible ways. Many commissions incorporated rammed earth, locally quarried stone and Saudi-sourced timber, realised through collaborations with regional craftspeople and cultural institutions. Engagement with Madrasat Addeera and the AlUla Music Hub deepened this dialogue, while the AlUla Native Plant Nursery advised on plant integration within several installations. The exhibition felt materially and conceptually rooted in place.
Agnes Denes, The Living Pyramid. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
“It’s just three words, nature, heritage and art,” noted Hamad Alhomiedan, arts and creative industries director at the Royal Commission for AlUla. “We see art as a pillar that connects different elements. We believe that AlUla is a destination built by artists, for artists.” Since launching in 2020 as the region’s first public art biennale, Desert X AlUla has commissioned over 45 works. Attendance continued to rise, surpassing 70,000 visitors by 2025, and the 2026 edition marked a new level of ambition.
Sara Abdu, A Kingdom Where No One Dies: Contours of Resonance. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
Sara Abdu’s A Kingdom Where No One Dies: Contours of Resonance stood out early on. Constructed from layered rammed earth, the installation carried traces of poetry within its geological mass, inviting close, tactile engagement. Not far away, Ibrahim El-Salahi’s Haraza Tree drew from the resilience of acacia species, assembling sculptural elements into a form that felt at once solitary and communal.
The collective Bahraini-Danish presented Bloom, a large-scale kinetic structure whose rotating arms caught the sun and projected shifting shadows across the sand. Though industrial in material, its movement felt organic, echoing the quiet sway of desert plants.
Bahraini-Danish, Bloom. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
Sound resonated throughout the landscape. Tarek Atoui’s The Water Song embedded instruments into the ground, encouraging careful listening to vibrations carried through soil and air. The desert became a resonant chamber. In contrast, yet in a complementary spirit, Héctor Zamora’s Tar HyPar, positioned within a gorge, functioned as a vast percussive form. Activated by visitors, it released deep reverberations that travelled along rock walls and open plains.
Ibrahim El-Salahi, Haraza Tree. ©Lance Gerber
Basmah Felemban’s Murmur of Pebbles magnified eroded stone fragments into carved limestone forms installed along ancient river paths. The work foregrounded sediment and duration, drawing attention to time’s quiet persistence. Scale shifted continually, intimate details expanded into monumental presence.
Héctor Zamora, Tar HyPar. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
Mohammad Alfaraj’s What was the Question Again? featured a palm structure formed from grafted trunks, referencing agricultural practices in Al Ahsa and the cyclical nature of cultivation and narrative. Vibha Galhotra’s Future Fables enclosed fragments of demolished architecture within a steel armature, reframing rubble as memory and possibility.
At the edge of the oasis, Agnes Denes’ The Living Pyramid rose in planted tiers, its vegetation set to evolve over the course of the exhibition. The work’s geometric clarity contrasted with the surrounding terrain, yet its ecological focus tied it directly to local cycles of growth and care.
Mohammad Alfaraj, What was the Question Again? © Suzette Bell-Roberts
Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons’ Imole Red layered planting, saturated colour and symbolic reference, drawing on Yoruba cosmology while responding to AlUla’s fiery sunsets. Water served as both material and metaphor, linking spiritual continuity to environmental awareness.
The late Mohammed AlSaleem’s The Thorn and AlShuruf Unit, originally conceived in the 1980s and shown publicly here for the first time, rose with striking geometric precision. Their upward forms echoed celestial alignments and desert horizons, bridging modernist language with regional sensibility.
Tarek Atoui, The Water Song. © Suzette Bell-Roberts
Across open desert, narrow canyons and cultivated ground, eleven artists from Saudi Arabia and beyond responded to wind, light, water and stone. As the Middle East’s first public art biennale, Desert X AlUla continued to expand the possibilities of site-responsive practice. Moving through it, I felt less like a spectator and more like a participant in a conversation between art and earth, unfolding slowly and without measure.
Desert X AlUla closes on 28 February 2026. For more information, please visit Desert X AlUla.
