The 2025 edition of the Biennale brings together loans from over 30 of the world's leading institutions, including the Vatican Apostolic Library (Vatican City), the Louvre Museum (Paris), and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), as well as collections devoted specifically to Islamic arts and cultures, such as the Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Learning and Islamic Research (Timbuktu), the Museum of Islamic Art (Doha), and the Manuscript Institution of Türkiye (Istanbul). Additionally, the Biennale has partnered with institutions from across Saudi Arabia, offering visitors a chance to see objects and works of art from the holy sites of Makkah and Madinah.
The show spans five exhibition halls and outdoor areas, occupying 100,000 square meters of exhibition space, and presents more than 500 objects in dialogue with contemporary artworks. It features the participation of over 30 artists from Saudi Arabia, the wider Gulf region, and around the world. In its second edition, the Biennale witnesses the first-ever display of the entire Kiswah—the cloth that covers the Holy Kaaba—outside of Makkah.
Led by Artistic Directors Julian Raby, Amin Jaffer, and Abdul Rahman Azzam, alongside Saudi artist Muhannad Shono as Curator of Contemporary Art, the Biennale offers insights into the ways cultures from around the world interact and endure. By juxtaposing historical objects from Islamic cultures with contemporary art, the Biennale explores how faith is experienced, expressed, and celebrated through feeling, thinking, and making.
The Islamic Arts Biennale takes place in Jeddah, a city that has been a meeting point of cultures for centuries. The site is the Western Hajj Terminal of King Abdulaziz International Airport, which echoes with memory and emotion for millions of Muslim pilgrims embarking on their sacred journeys for Hajj and Umrah every year. The exhibition will be on view through May 25, 2025.
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SOURCE Diriyah Biennale Foundation
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