DIRIYAH.- The third edition of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, titled In Interludes and Transitions, opened its doors to the public on January 30, 2026, and runs through May 2. Organized by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation, the Biennale takes place at JAX, Diriyah’s creative district, close to the UNESCO World Heritage Site At-Turaif.
Led by Co-Artistic Directors Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed, In Interludes and Transitions is conceived as a choreography in which histories, ancestors, and migrations move together through song, stories, dance, and whirlwinds. It unfolds through various movements inspired by the flows, migrations, and transformations that have long connected the Arab region with the world. The 2026 edition features the work of 68 artists representing more than 37 nations, and includes more than 25 new commissions.
The exhibition scenography, created by design studio Formafantasma, reimagines the JAX creative district’s industrial architecture as a weightless arrangement of color and form. The design guides visitors through a flowing composition of shifting planes and curved passages in a continuous, immersive movement across 12,900 square meters of exhibition halls, courtyards, and terraces.
The 2026 edition of the Biennale foregrounds musicality as a way of probing the essential role oral and aural modes of knowledge transfer have played in transmitting social histories in the Arab region and beyond. This is exemplified through a specially commissioned procession by Saudi artist Mohammed Alhamdan (7amdan), titled Folding the Tents (2026), which moves through the Wadi Hanifah valley and the JAX District, concluding with a performance by the musical group Miniawy Trio. In the performance, supported by Lexus, the multidisciplinary artist explores the notion of the procession, its transformation, and the inventiveness of an ancient practice in the age of electric, electronic, and digital culture, weaving pertinent connections between gestures of the past and practices of today.
Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed, Co-Artistic Directors of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2026: “With the opening of In Interludes and Transitions, we invite audiences to move through and with the biennale, and experience a range of artworks, ideas, and propositions that speak to our world today – a world in flux, in movement, in constant procession, and to share in an invocation of the world shaped not by fixity, but by itinerancy; not by single points of origins, but by overlapping vectors of routes, rhythms, and relations.”
Artists: Pacita Abad, Pio Abad, Rand Abdul Jabbar, Abdullah Miniawy Trio, Etel Adnan, Yussef Agbo-Ola [Olaniyi Studio], Leen Ajlan, Ahaad Alamoudi, Elyas Alavi, Afra Al Dhaheri, Shadia Alem, Mohammad Al-Ghamdi, Mohammed Alhamdan (7amdan), Nouf Al-Harthi, Ramy Alqthami, Abdullah Al Saadi, Ruba Al-Sweel, Lulua Alyahya, Ismaïl Bahri, Taysir Batniji, Dineo Seshee Bopape (Raisibe), Raven Chacon, Ayman Yousry Daydban, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Rohini Devasher, Merve Ertufan, Ivana Franke, Rahima Gambo, Eric Gyamfi, Samia Halaby, Petrit Halilaj, Hazem Harb, Aziz Hazara, Ho Rui An, Alana Hunt, Kamala Ibrahim Ishag, Amaka Jaji, Kayfa ta, Yazan Khalili, Moshekwa Langa, Daniel Lind-Ramos, George Mahashe, Guadalupe Maravilla, Naminapu Maymuru-White, Théo Mercier, Nour Mobarak, Mochu, Nancy Mounir, Hussein Nassereddine, Daniel Otero Torres, Thảo Nguyên Phan, Gala Porras-Kim, Sarker Protick, Abdelkarim Qassem, Raqs Media Collective, K.P. Reji, Faisal Samra, Oscar Santillán, Amina Saoudi Aït Khay, Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Karan Shrestha, Elias Sime, Trương Công Tùng, Rajesh Chaitya Vangad, Wolff Architects, Agustina Woodgate, Müge Yılmaz, and Yu Ji.
