Noor Riyadh 2025 immerses the city in 125 artistic positions, weaving together history, architecture, and rapid urban change in an unforgettable display of public art.
Shinji Ohmaki, Liminal Air Space-Time, 2025. Photo: Suzette Bell-Roberts
Having attended the last two editions of Noor Riyadh, I arrived this year with the familiar mixture of expectation and curiosity. What would the curators—Mami Kataoka, Director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo; Li Zhenhua, Beijing-based curator and founder of the Beijing Art Lab; and Saudi curator Sara Almutlaq, known for her international curatorial work—draw from this year’s expansive platform?
Plastique Fantastique, Double Heart, 2017. Photo: Suzette Bell-Roberts
Noor Riyadh has a way of surprising even its most devoted followers, and under the 2025 theme, In the Blink of an Eye, it does so with confident precision. The theme speaks directly to Riyadh’s extraordinary pace of transformation, where the city’s historical centre and its newly launched metro stations stand as parallel evocations of memory and momentum.
James Clar, When the Sky Reaches the Ground (a moment frozen), 2025. Photo: Suzette Bell-Roberts
This edition brings together 125 individual and collective artistic positions spanning six major sites representing 24 nationalities across 60 artworks, including more than 35 new commissions. Noor Riyadh has never been a festival that confines itself to traditional exhibition spaces. Instead, it unfolds through the city itself, immersing audiences in Qasr Al Hokm District, the King Abdulaziz Historical Centre, the architectural elegance of the STC and KAFD Metro Stations, the vertical landmark of Al Faisaliah Tower, and the creative energy of the JAX District. The result is an experience that feels integrated into Riyadh’s cultural and civic identity rather than positioned apart from it.
Saad Al Howede, Memory Melting, 2025. Photo: Suzette Bell-Roberts
Staged under Riyadh Art—the world’s largest public art initiative—the festival continues to reflect Vision 2030’s investment in creativity as a national asset. Since its launch in 2021, Riyadh Art has presented more than 550 artworks by 500 artists, reaching over 9.6 million visitors. Against this backdrop, Noor Riyadh 2025 feels both assured and ambitious, a reminder that public art here is not an embellishment but a visible expression of the city’s direction.
Safeya Binzager, Scenes of a Matrimony, 2025. Photo: Suzette Bell-Roberts
The curatorial theme is interpreted with nuance. “In the blink of an eye” becomes not only a lyrical gesture but a lens through which to understand the city’s rapid evolution. The newly opened metro stations—already striking in their structural clarity—serve as both infrastructure and cultural statement during the festival. Light installations integrated into these transit spaces shift the rhythm of daily movement, turning the commute into an encounter. This interplay between art and transit encapsulates the spirit of Noor Riyadh: a city in motion, meeting art that mirrors that momentum.
Ayoung Kim, Delivery Dancer’s Sphere, 2022. Photo: Suzette Bell-Roberts
“This year’s theme captures the momentum of change that defines Riyadh today,” His Highness Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan Al Saud remarked at the opening. In the glow of installations illuminating the old stone geometry of Qasr Al Hokm, the truth in that statement was impossible to ignore. Noor Riyadh continues to attract a remarkably diverse audience—from families and students to international visitors—each discovering the city’s cultural layers through light.
Alexander Gelas, In Light, Together, 2025. Photo: Suzette Bell-Roberts
As night settled over the city, the festival revealed its true character. Noor Riyadh has always been at its most powerful after dark, when the glow of the installations folds seamlessly into the urban landscape, and familiar sites take on new dimensions. Moving between the historic districts, the metro stations, and illuminated public squares, I was struck again by how the festival transforms the city’s rhythm. What feels expansive by day becomes intimate at night, drawing people in and creating pockets of shared stillness amid the glow. This is when Noor Riyadh feels most alive—when light becomes a language spoken collectively across the city.
More than 60 installations animate this year’s festival, including over 35 new commissions. A poignant inclusion is the tribute to the late Safeya Binzagr, a foundational figure in Saudi Arabia’s modern art movement. Her presence within the festival acknowledges the deep roots of Saudi art history, while the surrounding commissions signal its increasingly global reach. What impressed me most throughout the festival was the thematic consistency: transformation understood through shifts in light, perception, movement, and memory.
The curators have shaped the festival with an awareness of Riyadh’s multiplicity. Light becomes a connective element between neighbourhoods and histories, between the tactile presence of heritage sites and the sculptural clarity of new infrastructure, between the intimacy of personal reflection and the expansiveness of urban space. Each site feels distinct, yet collectively they form a chorus that speaks to Riyadh’s evolving cultural identity.
Nebras Aljoaib, Between Light and Stone, 2025. Photo: Suzette Bell-Roberts
Leaving the illuminated spaces at the end of the night, the city still shimmering with installations, I was reminded once again why Noor Riyadh has become one of the most closely watched events on the global art calendar. It captures a city in motion, a society expanding its creative horizons, and a public willing to embrace the transformative potential of art. In a city where everything can shift in the blink of an eye, Noor Riyadh offers a luminous moment to recognise that transformation as it unfolds.
fuse*, Luna Somnium, 2025. Photo: Suzette Bell-Roberts
The 2025 festival presents works by Addie Wagenknecht (US), Abdulrahman AlSoliman (SA), Abdelrahman Elshahed (EG), Ahmad Angawi (SA), Alex Schweder (US), Alexandra Gelis (CO/CA), Ayoung Kim (KR), atelier oï + WonderGlass (CH/IT), Christian Partos (SE), Christophe Berthonneau (FR), dies_ (INT), Saad Al Howede (SA), Edwin van der Heide (NL), Encor Studio (INT), Fatma Abdulrahadi (SA), Francesco Simeti (IT), fuse* (IT), Guillaume Cousin (FR), Hmoud Alattawi (SA), Iregular (CA), Ivana Franke (HR), James Clar (US/PH), Karolina Halatek (PL), Khalid Zahid (SA), Kurt Hentschläger (AT), László Zsolt Bordos (HU), Loris Cecchini (IT), Marnix De Nijs (NL), Michelangelo Pistoletto (IT), Mohammed Farea (SA), Monira Al Qadiri (KW), Muhannad Shono (SA), n + n Corsino (FR), Nebras Aljoaib (SA), Obaid Alsafi (SA), Otolab (IT), Plastique Fantastique (DE), Random International (UK/DE), Rejane Cantoni (BR), Robert Seidel (DE), Roman Hill (FR), Ryoichi Kurokawa (JP), Safeya Binzagr (SA), Saeed Gebaan (SA), Shinji Ohmaki (JP), Shiro Takatani / Dumb Type (JP), Shun Ito (JP) and Six N. (INT).
Noor Riyadh 2025 remains on view across the city until 6 December. Explore the full programme and festival map at Noor Riyadh.
Suzette Bell-Roberts is the Co-founder and Digital Editor of ART AFRICA magazine.
