Islamic Arts Biennale 2025: And All That Is In Between

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.

Muhannad Shono: “I have approached this process of curating more as an artist. I sought out those artists who have inspired me, whose work I admire and in whom I see reflections of my own aspirations. It was important to me to include both emerging and established names.”

The Islamic Arts Biennale consists of seven unique components (AlBidayah, AlMadar, AlMuqtani, AlMidhallah, AlMukarramah, AlMunawwarah, and AlMusalla) spread through different galleries and outdoor spaces, across 100,000 square meters of dedicated exhibition space.

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.

*As of December 23. Subject to change.

Curatorial team
The 2025 Islamic Arts Biennale is led by Artistic Directors Julian Raby, a distinguished scholar, former lecturer in Islamic art and architecture at the University of Oxford, and former director of the National Museum of Asian Art at the Smithsonian Institution, who also served on the curatorial team of the first edition of the Islamic Arts Biennale; Amin Jaffer, in his ongoing role as Director of The Al Thani Collection, whose academic and curatorial work is focused on the meeting of European and Asian cultures; and Abdul Rahman Azzam, an acclaimed author and historian who served as Senior Expert Advisor for AlMadar in 2023. Saudi artist Muhannad Shono, whose work deals with questions of spirituality and the role of imagination in shaping reality, and who represented Saudi Arabia at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2022 and was a participating artist in the first edition of the Islamic Arts Biennale, serves as Contemporary Art Curator.

The curatorial team includes Masa Al-Kutoubi (AlMadar Lead), Rizwan Ahmad (Curator), Heather Ecker (Curator), William Robinson (Curator), Marika Sardar (Curator), Joanna Chevalier (Associate Curator), Amina Diab (Associate Curator), Sarah Al Abdali (Assistant Curator), Bilal Badat (Assistant Curator), Faye Behbehani (Assistant Curator), and Wen Wen (Assistant Curator).

About the Islamic Arts Biennale
The Diriyah Biennale Foundation’s Islamic Arts Biennale provides a holistic platform for new discourse about Islamic arts, offering an unparalleled space for learning, research, and insight. The exhibition takes place every two years at the Aga Khan Award--winning Western Hajj Terminal at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, a city that for centuries has represented a junction point for cultural exchange and a venue that acts as a port of entry for millions of pilgrims on their journey to Makkah and Madinah. The first edition of the Biennale welcomed more than 600,000 visitors, and the second edition builds on this success in an expanded form.

About the Diriyah Biennale Foundation
Inspired by the changes taking place in Saudi Arabia and the heritage site of Diriyah, and Chaired by H.H. Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan Al Saud, the Diriyah Biennale Foundation (DBF) assumes a critical role in nurturing creative expression and instilling an appreciation for culture and the arts and their transformative potential. The Foundation aspires to be a catalyst for lifelong learning and serves Saudi Arabia’s communities by offering opportunities to engage with the burgeoning local art scene. Central to the Foundation’s mandate is to stage two recurring world-class Biennales of contemporary and Islamic arts, year-round interactive educational programs, and overseeing the activation of JAX, a creative district with industrial heritage in Diriyah. At this historical moment of evolution and growth in Saudi Arabia, DBF’s Biennales showcase some of the world’s leading artists, drive cultural exchange between the Kingdom and international communities, promote dialogue and understanding, and further establish Saudi Arabia as an important cultural center.

Press contact
mediaqueries@biennale.org.sa