Reinterpreting regional handicraft through technology, TECHNOCrafts’ Alwadiya: The Living Pots are biodegradable vessels designed for transformation. The series, on view at the Raw to Revival exhibition at the AlUla Arts Festival, is a material experiment responding to the ancient city’s heritage and ecology, envisioned to decompose into the land it came from. In collaboration with LAMÁQUINA and Micaela Clubourg, TECHNOCrafts has 3D printed the pots using a natural cellulose-based material infused with PURE.TECH — a carbon dioxide absorbing compound — and wrapped their forms in linen and biodegradable skins naturally tinged with hues extracted from local fruits and herbs.

This shift from permanence to ephemerality raises broader questions about how heritage is defined, as Raw to Revival presents crafts as a means of adaptation — one that acknowledges both historical knowledge and technological advances. In this region, where ancient ruins are preserved as markers of time, these pots propose an alternative born out of the interplay between handicrafts and digital crafts: an object conceived to participate in natural cycles. The exhibition will remain on view at Design Space AlUla until April 19th, 2025.

all images courtesy of Arts Alula

on view at raw to revival, at the alula arts festival

Madrasat Addeera, a historic girls school-turned arts and design hub in the old town of AlJadidah, was home to the Editions program curated by Samer Yamani which pairs local and international artisans and designers to develop new material applications rooted in AlUla’s traditions. The Alwadiya collection is one of four works commissioned as part of Madrasat Addeera Editions, with other objects on display including room dividers and seating and decorative items that each respond to AlUla’s environmental conditions through a combination of digital fabrication and traditional techniques.

Bridging these realms, Alwadiya: The Living Pots introduce an alternative perspective on sustainability and preservation. While traditional craft has often been associated with longevity, this project suggests that impermanence can be just as significant. TECHNOCraft has realized the vessels as living entities that will decay over time to reintegrate into a broader ecological cycle, their surfaces bearing the signs of erosion much like the life cycle of a tree. They are composed as an ode to AlUla’s lush oasis and its vibrant flora, including its citrus trees, aromatic herbs, and majestic date palms.

Alwadiya: The Living Pots bridge handicraft and technology

material experiments responding to the city’s heritage & ecology

By embedding biomaterials into the design process, Madrasat Addeera Editions moves beyond the replication of heritage aesthetics to explore how craft can evolve in response to contemporary environmental challenges, particularly with the integration of new production technologies. The Raw to Revival exhibition, in turn, presents these interventions as part of a broader conversation about the future of design in AlUla, with a focus on sustainability in terms of resource efficiency, as well as an ongoing dialogue between material, place, and time. With the perspectives of regional and international designers, the exhibition showcases AlUla’s distinct blend of natural beauty and craftsmanship, inviting visitors to explore textures, scents, sounds, and visuals that tell the story of the region.

created by TECHNOCrafts, LAMÁQUINA, and Micaela Clubourg

biodegradable vessels designed for transformation

the pots are 3D printed the pots using a natural cellulose-based material infused with PURE.TECH

wrapped in linen and biodegradable skins naturally tinged with hues extracted from local fruits and herbs

an object conceived to participate in natural cycles

Alwadiya: The Living Pots are on view at Raw To Revival for the AlUla Arts Festival

introducing an alternative perspective on sustainability and preservation

TECHNOCraft has realized the vessels as living entities that will decay over time to return to the ecological cycle

composed as an ode to AlUla’s lush oasis and its vibrant flora

project info:

name: Alwadiya: The Living Pots

designer: TECHNOCrafts

collaborator: LAMÁQUINA | @lamaquina_3d, Micaela Clubourg | @micaclubourg

exhibition: Raw to Revival

location: Design Space AlUla, Saudi Arabia

dates: January 16th — April 19th, 2025

The post TECHNOCrafts’ 3D printed pots designed to biodegrade pay homage to AlUla’s lush oasis appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

NEUMA: The Forgotten Ceremony is a meditation on pre-Islamic rituals and mythology, inspired by the desert of AlUla in Saudi Arabia. From the canyons of Wadi Al Naam to an historic mud-brick hotel, the two-part installation made on site draws from archaeological and epigraphic research into the heritage of the land and the stories of its ancient civilizations. Together, artists Sarah Brahim and Ugo Shiavi use breath, light, and performative movement to reimagine the rites and lingering spirituality of the lost ceremonies of the mountains.

The first expression is part architecture, part mirage, in which a cluster of glass panels rise from the sand to create a temple for reflection. Their translucent fragments catch the shifting light, echoed in the luminous glass vessels on display at the indoor exhibition in the old town. These mystical hand-crafted sculptures — made from the sand of AlUla — produce resonant tones that expand into the desert as a gesture of presence.

all images courtesy of the Royal Commission for AlUla

translucent glass activates neuma: the forgotten ceremony

The title of the project, NEUMA, derives from the ancient Greek ‘pneuma’ — meaning breath or spirit — grounding the work in the idea of a unifying presence that sustains and connects all of life, as the curators note. Saudi-American artist Sarah Brahim and French artist Ugo Schiavi’s research into AlUla’s past, undertaken with archaeologists and epigraphists as part of their residency at the upcoming Villa Hegra, reveals the remnants of a forgotten era where rituals were once integral in shaping space and meaning. Rather than reconstructing these lost ceremonies, NEUMA creates a framework for experiencing them in the present through the visceral, across natural and man-made sites.

Across both of these historic locations, glass is the connective element — formed by fire and shaped by breath. At Wadi Al Naam, appearing like architectural or natural ruins, it evokes the vastness of its landscape with jagged edges echoing contours of the landscape. Marked with imprints resonating with the weathered topographies surrounding it and refracting light, the glass is transformed into the terrain from which it was created.

NEUMA: The Forgotten Ceremony is a meditation on pre-Islamic rituals and mythology

light, breath, and movement complete the ceremony

At Dar Tantora, Sarah Brahim and Ugo Schiavi’s NEUMA takes on a more intimate scale. The hand-crafted blown-glass vessels, carrying the imprint of breath, illuminate the dimly lit room from their eerie vault-like niches within the earth walls. With forms resembling the geology of AlUla, they invite visitors to activate them with their breath that reverberates across the room, completing this ceremonial choreography that has been unearthed from the desert with sounds of nature. The accompanying film in the adjacent room, which was created in collaboration with AlUla-based performer Muruj Alemam and her children, Dema and Ibrahim, extends this meditation on air, movement, and ritual.

inspired by the desert of AlUla in Saudi Arabia

drawing from archaeological and epigraphic research into the heritage of the land and the stories of its ancient civilizations

a cluster of glass panels rise from the sand to create a temple for reflection

the two-part installation extends from the canyon to Dar Tantora

a series of hand-crafted blown-glass vessels, carrying the imprint of breath, and activated by the visitor

their gentle sound reverberates across the room, completing this ceremonial choreography

made from the sand of AlUla

the accompanying film was created in collaboration with Muruj Alemam and her children, Dema and Ibrahim

project info:

name: NEUMA — The Forgotten Ceremony

artist: Sarah Brahim, Ugo Schiavi

curator: Wejdan Reda, Arnaud Morand

location: AlUla, Saudi Arabia

The post sarah brahim & ugo schiavi unearth AlUla’s forgotten rituals with glass temples & vessels appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

James Turrell brings his sensorial artworks to the historic old town of AlUla, Saudi Arabia, for the ‘Wadi AlFann presents James Turrell’ exhibition. A prelude to his Land Art commission for Wadi AlFann (an open-air museum, the ‘Valley of the Arts’), the exhibition charts his legacy as a pioneering Light and Space artist and reveals a first glimpse at his upcoming colossal installation in the desert expanse. The untitled work is set to be constructed within the next four years and builds upon his ongoing explorations into the phenomena of color, space, and perception while using AlUla’s dramatic natural landscape and its purity of light as muse. Beyond creating an ethereal space to stage optical, cosmic encounters, it will also function as a permanent museum showcasing many of Turrell’s significant works.

A sequence of vast pathways, tunnels, chambers, and staircases will be carved into the canyon floor. As visitors navigate through, under, and out of the earth, and between lightness and darkness, they traverse a sensorial, singular experience of the land and the sky. Wadi AlFann’s Lead Curator Iwona Blazwick notes that the outdoor subterranean oculi, called Skyspaces, will be ‘cosmic observatories’ that dissolve horizons and challenge perceptions of celestial light. These circular spaces frame the shifting hues of the sky above as Turrell manipulates the context of vision while descending further leads into the Sun/Moon Chamber where the earth and cosmos are connected via what Turrell calls a ‘lensless telescope’. Above ground, the site expands into a planetary diagram etched into the earth, surrounded by sandstone mountains and crowned by an obelisk marking the sun’s passage like a sundial. The spaces present a surreal experience of Turrell’s philosophy of the ‘thingness of light’, examining the very nature of seeing where light itself becomes the revelation. Alongside revealing plans for the land art, the exhibition showcases some of Turrell’s most influential light sculptures to kick off the AlUla Arts Festival which runs from January 16 to February 22. ‘Wadi AlFann presents James Turrell’ will remain on view at AlJadidah Arts District until April 19.

all images © James Turrell, courtesy of the Royal Commission for AlUla

inside the upcoming colossal land art

James Turrell’s land art for Wadi AlFann builds upon his ongoing work at Roden Crater, where for the last five decades he has been reshaping an extinct volcano in the desert of Northern Arizona with light. This manifestation in AlUla of the same methodologies he has been continuing to develop will reactivate the desert wilderness as an immersive ‘naked-eye observatory’ of light and space, inviting visitors to journey deep into the earth. ‘The work envisioned for Wadi AlFann will have two large Skyspaces and two small Skyspaces, that each addresses different aspects of sky. All of my Skyspaces engage the natural light of the area. The light quality in AlUla is of dry desert air with little moisture, which yields a light in the sky that is crisp and clear,’ says the American artist. These cosmic observatories, as Michael Goven of LACMA, the exhibition’s Guest Curator, shares, are apertures in the ceiling that allow us to measure the movement of the sky and earth in time with our eyes.

Visitors will navigate hundreds of meters of tunnels carved into the mountain, culminating in a series of celestial experiences that forge optical and physical connections with astronomical time. One such feature is the obelisk surrounded by a constellation map which ‘lays out the stars and celestial bodies above us, showing their exact positions in orbit using LEDs that highlight their paths,’ the curatorial team tells designboom as we explore the exhibition. The journey leads to a central plaza and Skyspaces that use only natural light to reveal phenomena rarely visible to the naked eye. During the winter solstice, for instance, the path of sunlight is projected in the sunroom chamber. ‘Across the white marble, you’ll be able to see the spots and flares of the real sun above us that we can’t usually see, as well as the craters and dark spots of the moon. The artist is trying to connect us to these celestial bodies, bringing them into our lived-in space,’ they continue. The experience also features two underground chambers offering contrasting experiences of boundlessness. The Ganzfeld chamber immerses visitors in pure, colored light that dissolves walls and creates a dimensionless void. In contrast, the Wedgework chamber uses precise planes of light to create luminous forms that layer over one another, producing a dreamlike interplay between solidity and dissolution, evoking what Turrell describes as ‘a light that looks like the light you see in your dream.’

James Turrell unveils renders for his upcoming land art installation in Wadi AlFann

a survey of turrell’s mastery of light, color, and perception

Alongside presenting renders and a short film where James Turrell outlines his plans for the land art in Wadi AlFann, the exhibition gathers some of Turrell’s earliest light works alongside some of his most recent creations. The exhibition surveys the American artist’s mastery of holding and directing light — both artificial and celestial — as a medium for shaping sensory experiences. Immersing visitors in what Turrell describes as ‘the wordless thought that comes from looking at a fire,’ each work is then a meditation on the nature of perception. His cross-corner projection work Alta, an ethereal pyramid of light first created in 1968, sculpts a translucent volume into darkness with the immaterial element. As we move from one of its edges to the other appears to slightly rotate, its luminous pink-violet planes appear almost solid in this illusion.

His Jubilee installation pulses an intricately intense composition of color and light. Hypnotic discs of light seem to shift imperceptibly and emerge from another dimension, carrying viewers seamlessly from dazzling crimson to icy blue hues. As Guest Curator Michael Govan explains, the vibrant reds and blues we observe are not solely present in the light projected but are partially constructed in our minds. When our eyes encounter a vivid red and it disappears, the complementary afterimage of green overlays the subsequent hues, creating entirely new colors in our perception. Turrell reminds us that even the sky’s color is not fixed or given to us — it is ‘awarded’ through our context of vision. This interplay between light and perception mirrors the oculus Turrell plans to install in Wadi AlFann, a sphere that, like Jubilee, feels like a portal to an alternate reality. He builds on this optical illusion in a small, framed canvas with his Hologram series, where a slender shard of light appears to float, uncontained in the picture plane in juxtaposition.

the subterranean oculi — Skyspaces — are ‘cosmic observatories’ that frame the shifting hues of the sky above

the untitled work builds upon Turrell’s ongoing investigations into the phenomena of color, space, and perception

a sequence of vast pathways, tunnels, chambers, and staircases will be carved into the canyon floor

envisioned as a portal to an alternate reality through light

the exhibition kicks off the AlUla Arts Festival

Alta, an ethereal pyramid of light first created in 1968, sculpts a translucent pink volume into darkness with light

an optical illusion in a small, framed canvas where a slender shard of light appears to float

Jubilee pulses an intricately intense composition of color and light

hypnotic discs of light seem to shift imperceptibly and emerge from another dimension

as Govan explains, the vibrant reds and blues we observe are not solely present in the light projected

the vivid, shifting hues are partially constructed in our minds, as Turrell manipulates the light

this artwork mirrors the oculus Turrell plans to install in Wadi AlFann

project info:

name: Land Art commission for Wadi AlFann

artist: James Turrell 

location: AlUla, Saudi Arabia

program: AlUla Arts Festival | @artsalula

dates: January 16 – February 22, 2025

exhibition: Wadi AlFann presents James Turrell

dates: January 16 – April 19, 2025

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