Six artists have been living in AlUla Oasis in north-western Saudi Arabia since the start of November as part of the pilot version of AlUla’s first artists’ residency programme. They have been collaborating with specialists who are developing the natural oasis into the planned 50-square-kilometre hospitality, heritage and cultural venture.
The goal of the scheme, says Arnaud Morand of Afalula, the French organisation assisting in the development of AlUla, is to create “co-operation between international artists and the impressive array of scientific experts currently working in the oasis, from archaeologists, anthropologists, agriculture experts and botanists.”
Alfalula organised the programme alongside the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU), the Saudi governmental department overseeing the development project, and the French cultural agency Manifesto. Sofiane Si Merabet, an artist taking part in the programme, says: “I’d like to think I’ve helped the experts, like the archaeologists, change the perception of their own jobs.
“What’s so interesting is that we’re not just tackling one period of AlUla. AlUla is very famous for the Nabatean tombs, but they are discovering new civilisations, like the Dadan, and at the same time you have the people who were living in the gardens in the oasis, and they moved to the modern town.” Si Merabet, who is French-Algerian and lives in Dubai, works as an artist and also operates the popular social platform the Confused Arab, which investigates the multiplicity of identities worn by Arabs. He has been speaking to the local residents of AlUla, compiling information on their ceremonies and daily practices and the way they interacted with the area’s famed Nabatean tombs before they became an international tourist attraction.
“AlUla was an urban centre – you had one of the Ottoman train stations, and one of first schools of the kingdom was in AlUla,” he says. “So you have a duality in the identity of AlUla. The locals did not discover again the place – for them, it was already there. They used to visit the tombs with their families.”
The artists have been living in Mabiti hotel and working in the Madrasat AdDeera, a former girls’ school that is in the process of being transformed into a major art and design centre. The programme has been deliberately multidisciplinary, with workshops ranging from traditional wool-dyeing techniques, organised by the Princes’ Foundation School of Traditional Arts, to agricultural husbandry. The cohort is likewise relatively diverse. The artists involved are Rashed AlShashai and Muhannad Shono from Saudi Arabia; French artists Sara Favriau and Laura Sellies; and two artists who live in the UAE – Syrian artist Talin Hazbar and Si Merabet.