Neom's first artists in residence explore art's role in building a futuristic city

What is an artist’s role in building a city? The inaugural Artists in Residence programme at Neom addresses this question, and there is hardly a better place to investigate the subject than a city that is in the process of being built.

A $500 billion project, Neom has made international headlines over the past few years for its mega-developments that include The Line, Oxagon and Trojena. Once completed, the area in Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk region will effectively be transformed into what is routinely being advertised as “the land of the future”.

However, while these projects will certainly give Neom the appearance of a futuristic city, art and culture are what will give it a soul.

“When you're building a city, it's not just about building roads and buildings,” says Michael Lynch, executive director of entertainment, culture and media at Neom. “The original intention behind what we wanted to do was to embed the idea that artists have a place and role in the Saudi of the present and the Saudi of the future.”

Four Saudi artists – Bilal Allaf, Ahaad Alamoudi, Abdulmohsen Ali Bin Ali and Ayman Zedani – took part in the Artists in Residence programme. They were joined by four international artists: Eduardo Cassina from Spain, Tamara Kalo from Lebanon, Giulia Bruno from Italy and Liva Dudareva from Latvia.

Neom’s culture wing consulted the Dubai-based Alserkal Advisory to develop the residency and refine the selection process.

“We wanted Alserkal to work with us because they had run artist residence programme in many places before,” Lynch says. “They brought a degree of professionalism to the idea of how this programme would work. We weren't looking at late-career artists. We wanted people who had an inquisitiveness.”

In the first phase of the three-month residency, which began in September, artists travelled to Neom to become acquainted with the region, its landscape and the projects involved. “We wanted them to understand what we were doing,” Lynch says. “We wanted them to hopefully, sort of provoke us into thinking about now what would be the next iteration of the Artists in Residence programme.”

The artists travelled to Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, an art and advocacy foundation in Madrid, in the second phase of the residency to ruminate on their experiences in Neom while immersing themselves, Lynch says, “in a sophisticated and developed artistic market”.

“The artists then had a month to themselves to think about what their work was going to be, and if they wanted to create work,” Lynch says. “We didn't stipulate that they had to create work, but we envisaged that there would be an output at the end of it that we could show to the people at Neom.”

The artists were paired with engineers and people working in different sectors within Neom to better comprehend the scope and aim of the projects. This proved to be influential both ways, Lynch says.

Allaf is an example. The performance artist worked on a filmed dance piece that featured a robot programmed by one of the engineers at Neom. “The engineer also has become interested in the potential of engineering in relation to art,” Lynch says. “We have a robotics and a 3D printing team to help us make buildings and all sorts of things, and they're now looking at how 3D printing could create major public art pieces for us into the future.”

Other artists focused on a different aspect in Neom. Ali Bin Ali, for instance, was keen on exploring the ornithological and migratory patterns of the region’s birds. The artist found connections between the flight patterns and local mythologies and social histories, responding to Neom’s mandate of harmonising the natural environment with urban development.

Cassina, on the other hand, found inspiration in a 1990s Japanese sewing machine he found in Madrid. He worked with various departments within Neom, including the sustainability and urban planning sections, and eventually created an eight metre-long tapestry that maps out the history of Neom, between the Nabataean and contemporary eras.

“He actually created a map, which started at one end with the Nabataeans and finished with the camp that he was living in here,” Lynch says. “He created a brilliant artwork.”

Alamoudi also addressed the region’s sprawling history, but through film. “She went out into the desert and did a video telling her version of the story of Neom over a period of time,” Lynch says.

The artist’s works and research were presented in an exhibition at Neom in late November, effectively concluding the first Artists in Residence programme. A series of lectures by the artists were also hosted at the site, giving the Neom staff an insight into how they envision building a city for the future.

“We only did the exhibition for a relatively short period of time,” Lynch says. “We only had the 5,500 people who live in Neom as the target audience, as well as the consultants that had come in from various places. I think it clearly established, as you talk about things like buildings of the future and design in the future, that you'll get as much good ideas from artists as you will from architects, engineers or futurists.”