Maghras: A Farm for Experimentation

The Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia announces the country’s inaugural participation at the 24th Triennale Milano International Exhibition with a pavilion dedicated to Al Ahsa, an agricultural oasis that has been home to diverse civilizations since the third millennium BCE. Titled Maghras: A Farm for Experimentation, the exhibition is curated by Lulu Almana and Sara Al Omran, with Alejandro Stein as Creative Director. The pavilion explores the ways in which farming traditions, ecologies, and cultural memory are being reshaped in an agricultural landscape that has a long history and that is currently undergoing rapid transformation.

The exhibition is the culmination of research, programs, and artistic interventions at Maghras, a farm and interdisciplinary community space in Al Ahsa, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. In the months preceding the exhibition, artists, architects, and researchers engaged in a dialogue with inhabitants of local farming communities, bringing together first-hand reflections on the oasis and the region. Through performances, film screenings, and workshops, the research leading up to the presentation in Milan explored connections between culture and agriculture. The exhibition takes the form of a maghras, a traditional unit of measure that describes the land delineated by four palm trees.

The pavilion will bring visitors into the beating heart of Al Ahsa’s contemporary communities and ancient cultures. Videos, sound installations, and research are accompanied by participatory programs that ask questions about preservation, adaptation, and reimagination to revive bonds between people and ecology.

Urbanization and technological advancement are at the forefront of changes taking place in Saudi Arabia, and they often draw focus away from the quieter but no less significant transformations in rural regions. Al Ahsa, long central to the nation’s agricultural heritage, faces global challenges impacting rural regions and farming communities including changing demographics, environmental pressures, monocrop farming, urban sprawl, desertification, and shifts in communal life.

The Saudi pavilion in Milan examines the transformation of the landscape of Al Ahsa through a dialogue between art, research, and local memory, emphasizing the need for collective reflection on the future of local communities. Contributors use the exhibition space to reflect on the depletion of Al Ahsa’s springs and aquifers, the process of industrialization, and the historical shift from a diverse to a more homogeneous range of crops, dominated in particular by the date palm.

About the 24th Triennale Milano International Exhibition

The 24th Triennale Milano International Exhibition, titled Inequalities (May 13 – November 9, 2025), is dedicated to the issue of the growing inequalities that characterize cities and the contemporary world. Through a series of exhibitions, special projects and public program events, the International Exhibition questions the global challenges related to the differences present in various spheres of existence: from economic to ethnic, from geographic origin to gender. Personalities from the world of art, design, architecture, collectives, cultural institutions, museums and research institutes from around the world are called upon to reflect on the theme with the aim of mapping inequalities and identifying the most advanced political projects for a society in which differences are a resource and a value to be recomposed into new forms of community.

About the Architecture and Design Commission
The Architecture and Design Commission, established in 2020, is one of eleven commissions under the Ministry of Culture in Saudi Arabia, representing key disciplines including architecture, urban design and planning, landscape architecture, interior design, graphic design, and industrial design. The Commission supports and encourages practitioners, organizes exhibitions and seminars, and stimulates thinking in the sector to build an architecture and design landscape that mirrors the Kingdom’s rich and diverse culture.
Aligned with the objectives of the Ministry of Culture and Vision 2030, the Architecture and Design Commission promotes excellence in architecture and design, reflects Saudi Arabia's cultural identity and ambitions, empowers local talent, and enhances the quality of life within communities.

About the Ministry of Culture, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has a vast history of arts and culture. The Ministry of Culture is developing Saudi Arabia’s cultural economy and enriching the daily lives of citizens, residents, and visitors. Overseeing eleven sector-specific commissions, the Ministry is leading a cultural transformation to develop an abundant ecosystem that nurtures creativity, unlocks the economic potential of the sector, and unleashes new and inspiring forms of expression.