Mohammad Alfaraj: The heart is a bird’s nest, the brain is a spider web

The heart is a bird’s nest, the brain is a spider web, the first institutional solo exhibition in Europe by Mohammad Alfaraj, brings together new commissions with recent works that reimagine the narratives shared across species and our intertwined relationships.

Conceived in response to Delfina Foundation’s domestic setting, where the artist was in residence in 2018 and 2023, the exhibition unfolds across installation, drawing, photography, film, and sculpture. Among the most distinctive voices of a new generation of artists from Saudi Arabia, Alfaraj draws on social rituals, folklore, and everyday life to construct immersive narratives in which humans, animals, insects, and plants become companions, neighbours, and family.

For Alfaraj, emotions, memories, and the stories we tell ourselves are woven from different threads: some lived, some imagined. The exhibition’s title captures this poetic logic. The heart, like a nest, is a place of care, intimacy and belonging. The brain, like a spider web, is a place of complexity and entanglement.

Alfaraj imagines home as a boundless, shared ecology, revealing unexpected relationships that can be ordinary, humorous, and even profound. As the artist notes, ‘I consider home and family in the widest sense. The insects are my long-lost relatives who want to live off me, the cows are my loud neighbours that I have “beef” with, and birds always ask about me without wanting anything. This exhibition is a homecoming to Delfina which provided the nurturing soil from which I, and many artists, grew taller.’

The heart is a bird’s nest, the brain is a spider web highlights Alfaraj’s inventive, spiritual, and allegorical practice. Bringing together disparate materials, narratives and more-than-human perspectives into poetic encounters, the works invite viewers to reconsider what constitutes family and home. In doing so, the exhibition acknowledges contemporary social and environmental realities while holding open the possibility of hope.

Artist biography
Mohammad Alfaraj is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker and writer working across video, sound, photography, installation, sculpture, painting and writing.

Born and raised in Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia, a palm tree oasis and oil-producing region, Alfaraj draws inspiration from the non-negotiable dependence of people on nature. He frequently incorporates natural and indigenous materials found locally, such as dirt, palm fronds and dates, and often integrates other everyday objects into his works.

Sensitive to the oral traditions that populate his native country’s collective imaginary, Alfaraj is interested in the relationship between fiction and non-fiction, including stories from local workers and children’s games, reflecting on the ways people and the natural environment affect each other, both detrimentally and positively. His practice is a cinematic collage of mediums, practices and ideas, balanced with poetic sentiment and an undercurrent of hope.

Alfaraj graduated with a BA in mechanical engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in 2017. His work has been shown in various international solo and group shows, including Jameel Art Centre, Dubai (2025); Taipei Biennale (2025); Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale (2024); Diriyah Islamic Arts Biennale (2023); 16th Biennale de Lyon (2022); 21,39 Jeddah Arts (2020, 2019, 2017); Athr Gallery, Jeddah (2020, 2018); Sharjah Islamic Festival (2019); Sharjah Art Foundation (2019); Le Murate Pac, Florence (2019); Saudi Film Festival, Dammam (2015); and Dubai International Film Festival (2014).

Alfaraj’s first ever residency was at Delfina Foundation in 2018, and he returned into residence in 2024.

In October 2026, he opens a solo presentation at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.

Credits
Curated by Aaron Cezar, this exhibition has been made possible thanks to the support of the Mohammad Alfaraj Exhibition Circle and Cockayne—Grants for the Arts.