Islamic Arts Biennale celebrates artistic creation as an act of devotion

Jeddah has a central place in Islam. As the gateway to Makkah, the birthplace of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed, the city has been a welcoming port to Muslim pilgrims for centuries. It has also been a point of crosscultural celebration of faith – and it is precisely this quality that the Islamic Arts Biennale is honouring and reflecting on this year.

Opening to the public on Saturday, the event will be running until May 25 at the Western Hajj Terminal of King Abdulaziz International Airport. It is being organised by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation.

“This is an incredible moment for culture in Saudi Arabia,” Aya Albakree, chief executive of the Diriyah Biennale Foundation, said during the opening speech of the press preview on Friday. “We're witnessing the rise of many young Saudi artists, growing international attention to art events and a remarkable investment in infrastructure support creatives.”

The event’s location is remarkable, Albakree said, due to Jeddah’s status as a meeting point for Muslim pilgrims every year as they embark on Hajj and Umrah.

“The terminal is an extraordinary setting for our biennale,” she said. “Not just for its majestic [atmosphere], but also because of its meaning for millions of Muslim pilgrims. This is the world's only biennale dedicated to the arts of Islamic civilisation, both historic and contemporary.”

More than 600,000 visitors attended the biennale in its inaugural year in 2023. The event is seeking to build upon the elements that made the first run a success, namely by bolstering its international presence and showing how the concept of faith is reflected upon in the modern world.

More than 30 major institutions from around the world are presenting works in the event. These include the Louvre Museum in Paris, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha. The Ahmed Baba Institute from Timbuktu, the Suleymaniye Library from Istanbul, as well as Saudi cultural centres, such as Ithra and the King Fahad National Library are also participating.

Participating institutions are presenting their collections of ancient manuscripts and artefacts, and some works have never been seen in public before.

Notable historical pieces include a monumental Quran that was produced in India in the 19th century as a gift to the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah. The copy, which is displayed in AlBidayah, one of the biennale’s seven sections, is still steeped in mystery. Its donor, for instance, remains unknown, and there is hope that further research will uncover new information about the copy.

Also from the 19th century is a Kaaba staircase crafted from teak, iron, brass, steel, copper, gold, and ebony. The staircase was used to access the Kaaba’s entrance, which loomed two meters above the sacred ground. It was also produced in India as a gift.

Perhaps the most striking piece displayed is a Kiswah, the majestic drape used to cover the Kaaba. The presentation marks the first time a Kiswah in its entirety is displayed outside of Makkah. Every year, a new Kiswah is produced to cover the Kaaba. Creating a Kiswah fit for the holy site is as much an artistic accomplishment as it is a gesture of devotion. The Kiswah displayed at the biennale is a testament to this care for attention and detail. It was used to cover the Kaaba last year and is decorated with golden calligraphy.

Other striking pieces include works by Abdulghaffar Albaghdadi Almakki, the first recorded photographer to capture images of Makkah. Almakki, who died in 1902, captured more than 250 photographs, documenting the holy city during the late 19th century. The biennale will also present the first documentary on the Hajj. Made in 1928 by Georgio Eduardo Alberto Krugers, the film – Het Groote Mekka-Feest (The Great Makkah Feast) – follows a group of Indonesian pilgrims as they embark on Hajj.

Several of the historical pieces at the biennale are being displayed alongside contemporary works that offer a novel understanding of what constitutes Islamic art. The works are brought together under the event’s theme, And All That Is In Between. The theme is inspired by a recurring verse in the Quran, which describes the all-encompassing beauty of God’s creations. The verse translates to: “And God created the heavens and the Earth and all that is in between.”

Contemporary works include Saudi artist Hayat Osamah’s Soft Gates, an emotive collection of rolled fabrics, each glistening with a unique colour and forming a gateway between exhibition spaces. The work reflects upon the neighborhood in Riyadh where Osamah grew up, and the importance fabrics played in instilling a sense of community.

Saudi artist Saeed Gebaan’s kinetic installation Nafas, meanwhile, features golden filaments arranged as a chandelier. The filaments slowly rise and fall, mimicking the movements of the chest as it inhales and exhales. Italian artist Arcangelo Sassolino’s Memory of Becoming features a large steel disk that slowly and perpetually rotates. The work is coated with industrial oil, which drips to the platform below, and is meant to evoke the inevitability of change and transformation. UK artist Asif Khan is presenting Glass Quran, which reflects on the relationship between light and the holy text. In Magnetism, Saudi artist Ahmed Mater evokes the centrality of the Kaaba in Islam by presenting a magnetic cube that bends thousands of iron particles towards it.

The works at the biennale are displayed in indoor and outdoor areas of the Western Hajj Terminal, thematically divided across seven sections, each of which is meant to address a different aspect of our relationship with faith. With 500 pieces, the subject matter, materials and styles of the works differ widely. However, they all have one thing in common: they all pay tribute to the wonders materialised by the divine.

The biennale is also revealing the winner of the inaugural AlMusalla Prize, an architecture competition launched by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation that reimagines places of worship. The Lebanon-based East Architecture Studio won the competition with their project On Weaving. The project is displayed under the outdoor canopies of the terminal. It brings together three historical aspects: the legacy of mosque courtyards, the tradition of using date palms in construction, as well as the heritage of weaving.

Collectively, the works at the Islamic Arts Biennale offer at once a holistic view of how Islam has influenced disparate cultures around the world, while celebrating the act of artistic creation as an act of devotion and tribute to the divine.

Julian Raby, an art historian and one of the artistic directors of the biennale, said the event, and its theme, aims to explore the “wonders of creation and look at how man has responded to these.” Across its seven sections, the biennale emphasises the most sacred objects in Islam and shows examples of how man has tried to comprehend these creations.

“We appreciate how man has responded beauty to create beauty through their hands,” he said. “So this is feeling, thinking, making. And in all of this, the historic objects have been juxtaposed and contrasted with contemporary works to create in an extremely dynamic way.”