Set against the raw grandeur of AlUla, Desert X AlUla 2026 unfolds as a profound conversation between art and landscape. Welcoming its first visitors during the pre-opening day, the fourth edition reveals monumental works embedded across valleys, canyons, and ancient oases. The experience is immersive rather than observational. Each encounter feels intimate, despite the vastness that surrounds it.
Presented by Arts AlUla in collaboration with Desert X, the exhibition brings together eleven pioneering artists responding directly to the terrain. Earthworks, sculptures, and installations rise organically from the desert floor. Rather than competing with the land, the works draw strength from it. The landscape becomes both medium and message.
This year’s curatorial theme, Space Without Measure, resonates deeply within AlUla’s expansive geography. The artworks resist fixed scale, instead embracing distance, silence, and time. From subtle interventions to commanding structures, each piece challenges how space is perceived and inhabited. The desert, in turn, reshapes the viewer’s sense of proportion.
New commissions form the emotional core of the exhibition, with works by internationally respected figures alongside regionally significant voices. Artists such as Mohammed Alfaraj, Tarek Atoui, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Agnes Denes, and Ibrahim El-Salahi engage with memory, sound, ecology, and movement. Particularly poignant are the posthumous works by Mohammed AlSaleem, offering a rare and resonant presence. The result is layered, contemplative, and quietly powerful.
Curated by Wejdan Reda and Zoé Whitley, with artistic direction from Neville Wakefield and Raneem Farsi, the exhibition maintains a careful balance between global dialogue and local grounding. The curatorial approach allows each work space to breathe. There is no urgency, only rhythm and reflection.
As part of the fifth AlUla Arts Festival, Desert X AlUla 2026 also signals the evolving vision of Wadi AlFann. This emerging cultural destination positions land art not as spectacle but as legacy. The biennale becomes a marker of intent, signalling AlUla’s role in shaping future-facing cultural narratives.
Running until 28 February 2026, Desert X AlUla 2026 is less an exhibition and more a journey across thought, terrain, and time. It invites visitors to slow their pace and reconsider scale, presence, and permanence. In the vast silence of the desert, art does not demand attention—it earns it. What remains is an experience defined by stillness, resonance, and quiet awe.
