Over 700 drawings and full documentation of the major participatory Land art installation conceived by the Saudi artist for “Valley of the Arts”.
Manal AlDowayan is a multi-media artist whose works are often made with the participation of a host of collaborators.Together they reveal untold stories about places and people - in particular women. She is creating a major new installation for Wadi AlFann, or Valley of the Arts, inspired by the 900-year-old settlement of AlUla: a labyrinth of sculpted walls that retrace the footprint of the old town, appearing like a mirage in the desert.
For this project, the artist asked local communities to create pictograms that symbolise their life in AlUla which she will inscribe on the walls of her desert installation. Their remarkable drawings are presented in this book, and every picture tells a story. The artist connects them with a pre-historic tradition of rock art. Just as travellers once carved animals, goods, prayers and salutations into Wadi AlFann's cliffs, so the people of AlUla will leave their mark in the desert for future generations.
Through the artist's participatory workshops, over 700 drawings were created. They are presented according to themes such as family, home, landscape, culture and ritual.
Manal AlDowayan (born 1973) is one of Saudi Arabia's most significant contemporary artists working internationally. Her work, which spans various mediums including photography, sound, sculpture, and participatory practice, interrogates traditions, collective memories, and the status and representation of women. AlDowayan represented Saudi Arabia at the Venice Biennale 2024.
AlDowayan's practice navigates a territory where the personal and the political overlap. Her works spring from lived experiences—these intimate encounters with social injustice, the pangs of memory and forgetting. Yet her pieces are consistently galvanizing, sparking identification and engagement, particularly among women around the world.
