sensorial installations reimagine ‘garden of concepts’ at islamic arts biennial in jeddah

islamic arts biennale reflects on expressions of faith

The Islamic Arts Biennale returns to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for its second edition, bringing together over 500 historic artifacts and contemporary artworks that illustrate the richness of Islamic identity and culture. Themed And all that is in between, a verse that appears 20 times in the Quran, the biennale celebrates the wonders of divine creation and examines how mankind has responded to them over the years. Beneath the Western Hajj Terminal’s iconic canopies, the AlMidhallah section becomes host to around 20 site-responsive commissions unified by the concept of the Islamic Charbagh — the Indo-Persian quadrilateral garden divided by water channels — as a site of expanded imagination. ‘A garden is a place of escape, beauty, meditation, and community,’ says Artistic Director Amin Jaffer at the opening. ‘Above all, it is a place of the heart and the soul.’

This concept is then divided explored across four thematic zones, beginning with the gateway, where artists such as Fatma Abdulhadi and Bilal Allaf examine physical and spiritual transitions. Moving through spaces of understanding and knowledge, Tamara Kalo revisits Ibn al-Haytham’s scientific legacy, while Anhar Salem interrogates the digital reimagining of Islamic symbols to meditate on their future. The final quadrants, dedicated to contemplation and rejuvenation and congregation and community, highlight humanity’s entwinement with nature, history, and one another. Here, Nasser Alzayani mourn ecological losses, while Imran Qureshi weaves a serene oasis between two sacred cities. The location itself, designed by SOM in the 1980s as a shaded Bedouin village, is the prominent prominent symbol of a ‘gateway to Islam’, receiving millions of pilgrims each year. It becomes a fitting stage for reflecting on how experiences and expressions of faith have evolved across Muslim civilizations, and how contemporary cultures continue to define their identity in relation to matters of today.

AlMidhallah at Islamic Arts Bienniale | image by Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of the Diriyah Biennale Foundation

fatma abulhadi and bilal allaf explore pathways to paradise

The journey begins with works that symbolize crossing physical and metaphysical thresholds into spaces of transformation. Fatma Abdulhadi’s I Wish You in Heaven is a surreal passageway celebrating life while mourning the deceased. Integrating an olfactory element, the artist explores the idea of family heirlooms and the Quranic significance of plants, suspending translucent tapestries marked with ghostly imprints of basil leaves. ‘My mother used to tell me that in the Quran, it says that the scent of basil is the scent of Jannah (paradise),’ Abdulhadi tells designboom.

This notion of a path to healing is explored as a collective ritual in Bilal Allaf’s video, What I Heard in the Valley. Sa’y, the journey between Safa and Marwa (performed annually by millions of Hajj pilgrims), is reimagined as a meditation on striving and surrender. During our tour, curator Muhannad Shono describes the Saudi artist’s relentless, 24 hours of pacing as ‘an act of affirmation of life.’

I Wish You in Heaven by Fatma Abdulhadi | image by Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of the Diriyah Biennale Foundation

questioning ancient knowledge and the digital age

‘The garden is a place of understanding; we learn from nature,’ says Amin Jaffer as he reflects on AlMidhallah’s second concept. Honoring the historic Islamic civilizations’ quests for knowledge, the garden installations engage with cultural histories, ecological issues, and ancestral knowhow to address contemporary concerns. Tamara Kalo looks to the scientific and technological investigations of the Islamic Golden Age with Optics of a Rising Sun. Her copper structure reinterprets Ibn al Haytham’s camera obscura, while speaking to a Quranic verse (Al-Nur) on the presence of light. Two camera lenses point eastward where the sun rises, and westward, where it sets, with the point in between allowing visitors to view their surroundings in reverse.

For Anhar Salem, it becomes about examining digital representation as a Muslim today. Her work Media Fountain investigates how globalization, capitalism, and mass media reshape religious rituals and symbols across the world. ‘She has tapped into her community to online to help her source and archive anonymous profile avatars on these mosaics,’ Muhannad Shono tells designboom. Its water tap, when activated, projects a cascade of AI-generated Islamic imagery onto a visitor’s palm.

Optics of a Rising Sun by Tamara Kalo | image © designboom

Louis Guillaume’s interpretation of the biennale theme, meanwhile, looks to the non-human agents of Islamic gardens. ‘For me, what is in between the sky and the earth is the sun and the wind ,’ the artist tells us. The sun-shaped When We Welcomed the Wind reimagines the mashrabiya – a traditional architectural element regulating light and windflow — as a living organism. Its cellular composition is woven from seeds, recalling the mashrabiya’s geometries while alluding to drought brought on by the climate crisis. At the same time evoking vitality, it unintentionally becomes a large bird shelter under the terminal canopies.

When We Welcomed the Wind by Louis Guillaume | image © designboom

the garden as a space for Contemplation and rejuvenation

Amin Jaffer holds that the garden, ‘a place of nature and beauty’, is one of contemplation and rejuvenation. ‘Though,’ he recognizes, ‘ we live in an age of environmental, and cultural, crises.’ The works in this third section thus evoke meditation as well as dichotomies of destruction and regeneration. In Watering the distant, deserting the near, Nasser Alzayani honors Bahrain’s natural springs that have dried up due to human exploitation and climate change. Inspired by ancient cuneiform tablets, he inscribes an eroding poem mourning the fate of the springs into sand, imagining the land itself as a storyteller. ‘The work is about care, about questioning ideas of heritage and erasure,’ the artist shares.

In Sleepers of the Cave, Iqra Tanveer and Ehsaan Ul Haq too explore the elasticity of time and the urgency of global realities. Drawing from the Quranic parable in chapter Al-Kahf, the artists render this miraculous awakening to the advent of a new age with imagery of fertility and resurrection, ambiguous clay creatures, and a rippling water well. The artists leave us reflecting with a sense of hope, amplified by the holy setting near Makkah . ‘There is an apocalyptical alarm, but it is also a paradigm shift… Every end is a beginning,’ they tell designboom.

Congregation and community

‘The garden is where our relationships are formed, made, and bound,’ Amin Jaffer reflects during his talk. Historically, the Islamic garden has been a place of congregation, and the installations within this section reflect its role in articulating shared, community experience. With In Between Sacred Cities (Zubaydah Trail), Imran Qureshi taps into his training as a miniature painter – a historic art form in which the Islamic garden is a prevalent motif – to visualize a tranquil oasis of waterways dividing verdant quadrants. The installation invites visitors to wander, gather, or lay down in this garden woven using the artisanal techniques that make charpai, the traditional beds of rural South Asia. ‘ In this age of technology, there is a segregation between these traditional crafts. It’s important to preserve them, but also to consider how they can take new shape,’ he tells designboom.

Similarly, Asim Waqif revitalizes vernacular forms and crafts to address concerns about their future, endangered by contemporary technologies. Min Rukam assembles bamboo harvested in India into an immersive cocoon, woven with traditional basketry techniques on an architectural scale. Interactive, it invites visitors to step over the bamboo and tap the walls to together create an immersive sonic symphony.