Noor Riyadh: the festival of light in Saudi Arabia

The cultural ferment that crosses the country

These small but fundamental changes correspond to a great cultural ferment which translates into high-profile artistic initiatives.

In recent years, the Saudi government has mobilized to imagine the economy in the post-oil era guided by the strategic plan Vision 2030, studied to reduce Saudi Arabia's dependence on oil, diversify the economy and develop public service sectors such as health, education, infrastructure, culture, recreation and tourism.

Noor Riyadh

The fifth edition of the Tanween festival, which has just concluded in Dammam, within the King Abdulaziz  Center for World Culture (Ithra), a remarkable building completed in 2018 by the Norwegian studio Snøhetta, and the second edition of the Noor Riyadh light festival which opened on November 3rd and will continue until the 19th of this month, bringing grandiose light installations to the Saudi capital with the aim of engaging and nurturing local talent, and bringing together an audience of 7 million residents of Riyadh, including families, creatives, professionals and students, and visitors from all over the world.

Noor Riyadh takes place within Riyadh Art, an even wider-ranging initiative aimed at dotting the streets, squares and neighborhoods of the city ​​with site-specific immersive installations, monumental public artworks, ephemeral sculptures, musical performances and virtual realities produced by local and international artists.

Light and dream as an idea of the future

This year's theme is We Dream of New Horizons (We Dream of New Horizons), which explores the dimension of light both in its technical and functional component and in its symbolic one. In fact, light is an emblem of positivity and hope, it represents renewal, transformation and trust in a brighter future.

The festival is curated by the French Hervé Mikaeloff, consultant and curator for the LVMH group. Mikaeloff is joined by the co-curators Dorothy Di Stefano, known in the world of immersive and interactive art curatorship, and by the Saudi Jumana Ghouth, who deals with the Athr Gallery, one of the main platforms for contemporary art in Saudi Arabia.

From drones to interactive installations

There are 190 the works created which have involved over 130 local and international artists, both established and emerging, representing 40 nationalities.

Among these, there is Marc Brickman, world-renowned lighting and production designer, who during his career has collaborated with dozens of musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd and Paul McCartney, to animate their live concerts through lights and screens. In Riyadh, this year he brought a ultra-technological performance which sealed the opening ceremony of the festival by making 2,000 drones equipped with multicolor LEDs take off in flight, which gave life thundering shapes in the sky.

Among the installations commissioned to Saudi artists, the work of Muhannad Shono stands out, a Saudi visual artist, born in 1977, graduated in Architecture at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, who created an immersive installation made of lights, wires and sounds transforming an entire building in a working-class district of Riyadh.

Among the international artists, however, there are important signatures such as the Berlin artist Alicja Kwade, the French Daniel Buren, the award-winning digital artist Refik Anadol and the Dutch Daan Roosegaard, who brought to Riyadh Waterlicht, a virtual installation that recreates a dream landscape to reflect on the power and poetry of water.