Saudi conceptual artist Muhannad Shono breaks down some of his most significant works 

The Teaching Tree. (Supplied)
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Updated 19 May 2023
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Saudi conceptual artist Muhannad Shono breaks down some of his most significant works 

  • ‘The making of the work is the adventure,’ says Muhannad Shono

DUBAI: Saudi artist Muhannad Shono’s conceptual installations have been garnering praise both regionally and globally in recent years. Not that Shono himself takes much notice. 

“People’s reaction to my work — whether they like it or not — is the not the well I drink from,” he tells Arab News. “It’s not what’s pushing me. I can see the impact, but I don’t do it for the impact. . . It becomes a life that you can no longer speak for, defend, or nurture. You put it out there and it needs to find its own way.” 

His projects have been displayed in regional and international biennales and festivals, and have tackled thought-provoking themes including personal loss, defining childhood memories, and the rigidity of language.  




Shono’s projects have been displayed in regional and international biennales and festivals. (Supplied)

Shono works with a variety of tactile raw materials, from sand to pipes, setting up installations in the unlikeliest of places, including an old administrative building and the open desert. “The making of the work is the adventure,” he says. 

His color scheme is notably monochromatic, focusing on blacks, whites, and greys. “I was never attracted to color,” he says. He developed an obsession with black, mostly due to the thick black lines that censored pages of the comic books he read consistently as an imaginative child who liked telling stories and making up characters.  

A milestone in the career of Shono, who was born and raised in Saudi to Syrian parents, was representing Saudi Arabia at the Venice Biennale in 2022, where he presented a self-described “undeniable object” called “The Teaching Tree,” filling up the entire length of the pavilion.  

“For me to represent the country and be in this position where I’m being recognized as a Saudi is very indicative of a wider acceptance of what it means to be Saudi, and a new shift to a wider embrace that I didn’t feel so much in the first chapter of my time here,” he says.  

Here, Shono walks us through some of his most significant projects from the past four years.   

‘The Teaching Tree’ (2022) 

“The Teaching Tree” is an act of creative resistance. It’s an embodiment of the living imagination, though there were attempts to silence the creative spirit. It is a tree that duplicates, multiplies, and grows from a single line and becomes a teaching tree. It’s taking teachings that we’re trying to limit the imagination and from it begets monsters to defend the imagination. It’s a tricky thing to use the palm material because it’s such an overused symbol, but I think it worked out well. It created a new skin. Of course, the whole thing is breathing, powered by nematics. It was at the Saudi pavilion at the Venice Biennale. There were a lot of tears on the day of the inauguration. (Laughs.)  

‘I See You Brightest in the Dark’ (2023) 

This work is about loss. It was displayed in Noor Riyadh festival in an administrative building that I rented out. It begins in the basement, welcoming in visitation of light. It’s very sculptural — there are threads of white light in a darkened room. Then you go up to the ‘Library of Memories.’ We collect the memories and spool them. There are around 300 spools — or ‘books’ — that go up to a loom, where we try to weave (the memories) back into tangibility, which is futile. It all flows up to the roof, where we let go. We have this fresh sheet and this moment of acceptance and a new sky above us.  

‘On Losing Meaning’ (2021) 

“On Losing Meaning” is a sculptural robot. Or a word made out of pigment that has lost its meaning. It doesn’t know what its definition is, so it’s searching for its meaning. It’s a metallic skeleton coated with petroleum jelly, black carbon, and beeswax. The irony is that the more it searches through performative mark-making, trying to find itself, the more it destroys its figurative shape, thus losing its meaning. It eventually breaks down and erodes. You’ll see that in a few of these projects, there is a rejection of the rigidity of language, definition and meaning in the doctrinal sense.  

‘The Silence Is Still Talking’ (2019) 

This work was from a show addressing the labor needed to reform, reshape, and rehabilitate our relationship with the rigid word that is intolerant and hard to negotiate with. By using only charcoal, the work was about breaking down a word or a sentence that had a definition and form and we ground it down until it lost its legibility. It lost its power. We took this pigment, which was now a raw material, and we used it throughout this show, trying to excavate new words and new definitions that are more fluid.  

‘On This Sacred Day’ (2022) 

This work is in an oasis in AlUla. It addresses the local people in AlUla who were afraid of the change that was coming, and what that meant for their jobs, families, and homes. There were anecdotes of people being frustrated about the change. I came across palm trees that were burned down, due to pests and diseases. I created these black sculptural objects as a way of processing that change and to address the idea of controlled burns versus wildfires. 

‘The Lost Path’ (2020) 

“The Lost Path” was 300 meters long with 60,000 pipes. It was in the inaugural Desert X in AlUla. I created a sculptural path that was not visible from the main site, but if you followed it, as the hero, you were gifted not with a treasure chest (which is often empty at the end of these kinds of adventures), but with a very quiet, secluded moment at the end of “The Lost Path,” where there is no signal or sound you can hear. So I gift to you a moment with yourself. A friend and I developed the structure and then we had eight (people helping). We killed ourselves to make this happen. I wouldn’t be able to redo it, because I know too much about what it takes.  


Authors, screenwriters sign letter calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’

Updated 28 May 2025
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Authors, screenwriters sign letter calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’

DUBAI: Members of the literary community including Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Russell T Davies, Hanif Kureishi, Frank Cottrell-Boyce and George Monbiot are among 380 writers and organizations who have signed an open letter condemning Israel’s war on Gaza, describing it as genocidal and calling for an immediate ceasefire.

The letter, also signed by William Dalrymple, Jeanette Winterson, Brian Eno, Kate Mosse, Irvine Welsh and Elif Shafak, states: “The use of the words ‘genocide’ or ‘acts of genocide’ to describe what is happening in Gaza is no longer debated by international legal experts or human rights organizations.”

The writers are urging the UN to ensure the free and immediate delivery of food and medical supplies to Gaza, alongside a ceasefire “which guarantees safety and justice for all Palestinians, the release of all Israeli hostages, and the release of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners arbitrarily held in Israeli jails.” 

They add that if the Israeli government fails to comply with the demand for a ceasefire, sanctions should be enforced.

The letter, organized by writers Horatio Clare, Kapka Kassabova and Monique Roffey also says that Palestinians “are not the abstract victims of an abstract war. Too often, words have been used to justify the unjustifiable, deny the undeniable, defend the indefensible. Too often, too, the right words – the ones that mattered – have been eradicated, along with those who might have written them.”

The term “genocide” “is not a slogan,” it adds. “It carries legal, political and moral responsibilities.”


Saudi model Amira Al-Zuhair returns to the runway  

Updated 28 May 2025
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Saudi model Amira Al-Zuhair returns to the runway  

DUBAI: French Saudi model Amira Al-Zuhair returned to the runway this week when she walked in Louis Vuitton’s high jewelry collection show, held at Bellver Castle on the island of Majorca, Spain.

Al-Zuhair reshared a video posted by Dubai-based Iraqi model and influencer Dima Al-Sheikhly, who shared her runway moment with the caption: “Wait for it… our beautiful Amira Al-Zuhair.”

The model wore a strapless white gown featuring a fitted bodice and a soft, flowing skirt. (Instagram)

It marks her return to the runway after she hit the catwalk at the amfAR gala in Cannes in May, before which she walked for Australian label Zimmermann at Paris Fashion Week in March.  

For Louis Vuitton, the model wore a strapless white gown featuring a fitted bodice and a soft, flowing skirt. The dress was detailed with cascading ruffles outlined in dark trim, which ran down the front and sides.

Al-Zuhair wore bold, sculptural necklace composed of three gold bands arranged in a layered choker style. (Instagram)

For the jewelry, Al-Zuhair wore bold, sculptural necklace composed of three gold bands arranged in a layered choker style. One band was set with a row of vivid yellow diamonds, while the other two boasted a twisted, rope-like texture. At the center, a large round yellow diamond pendant was suspended beneath a striking white diamond. 

Al-Zuhair also walked Louis Vuitton’s high jewelry show in Saint-Tropez last year.

She wore an intricate chunky choker that featured a wide, structured design with a lattice-like pattern in gold, adorned with numerous diamonds. The focal point of the necklace was a large yellow gemstone, which added contrast to the overall design.

This week, Al-Zuhair also reflected on her recent campaign with Balmain, sharing photos from the Resort 2025 collection shoot.

“Had so much fun shooting inside the Eiffel Tower herself!” she wrote in the caption.

In one of the images, Al-Zuhair donned a strapless denim mini dress paired with two matching denim handbags and calf-high black boots.

In the second image, she wore a black sequined two-piece outfit, featuring a crop top and a high-waisted skirt. The design incorporates gold and silver embellishments, with the top featuring the word “L’aime.”

This is not Al-Zuhair’s first collaboration with Balmain. She previously walked for the brand during Paris Fashion Week in September.

Al-Zuhair, born in Paris to a French mother and Saudi father, has made her mark on the fashion world and has appeared on the runway for an array of renowned fashion houses such as Missoni, Maison Alaia, Brunello Cucinelli, Balmain, Dolce & Gabbana, Giambattista Valli, Giorgio Armani, Elie Saab and more.


Paul Mescal spotlights Palestinian doc ‘No Other Land’

Updated 28 May 2025
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Paul Mescal spotlights Palestinian doc ‘No Other Land’

DUBAI: While promoting his latest film, “The History of Sound,” at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, Irish actor Paul Mescal took a moment to spotlight the Palestinian documentary “No Other Land.”

In a heartfelt statement, Mescal shared his experience watching the film in a packed Brooklyn theater, expressing profound upset over its limited distribution. He emphasized the importance of amplifying Palestinian voices and stories, highlighting the film's portrayal of the destruction of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank.

“I remember sitting there in a packed-out theater in Brooklyn and just being so profoundly upset that the film hadn’t, at that point, I still don’t know if it has received distribution there. Having a cultural moment like that with a film like that, which is so wildly upsetting to see in a room. The story that I feel like needed to be told the most was being censored, it felt like almost. And the feeling in the room was one of great fear and sadness and it felt like the film was bigger than the four walls in which we were watching it,” he said.

“No Other Land,” the story of Palestinian activists fighting to protect their communities from demolition by the Israeli military, won the Oscar for best documentary earlier this year.

The film’s co-directors, Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham used their speeches to call for an end to the “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”

The film follows activist Adra as he risks arrest to document the destruction of his hometown, which Israeli soldiers are tearing down to use as a military training zone.


Nikki Glaser wears Yara Shoemaker at American Music Awards

Updated 27 May 2025
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Nikki Glaser wears Yara Shoemaker at American Music Awards

DUBAI: US actress and comedian Nikki Glaser attended the American Music Awards this week wearing a black midi dress by US label Yara Shoemaker, founded by Syrian-born designer Yara.

Nikki Glaser completed the look with classic black patent leather pointed-toe stilettos. (Getty Images)

The form-fitting dress featured a lace-up corset detail at the front, with thick straps, a deep sweetheart neckline and metal eyelets that cinched the waist. She completed the look with classic black patent leather pointed-toe stilettos.

The designer also featured at the Cannes Film Festival last week, with part-Saudi model Shanina Shaik and US German model and TV personality Heidi Klum both wearing her creations.

Shaik opted for a two-texture gown featuring a sculpted, strapless corset-style bodice in ivory ribbed fabric. The silhouette flared slightly at the hips and flowed into a floor-length skirt of sheer embroidered lace adorned with beadwork and sequins.

Meanwhile, Klum wore a black strapless gown with a corset-style bodice embellished with black sequins and intricate beadwork. The dress flowed into a sheer floor-length skirt decorated with delicate black appliqué motifs. She completed the look with a voluminous black feathered cape draped over her arms.

The American Music Awards saw “Birds of a Feather” singer Billie Eilish named Artist of the Year, beating Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Morgan Wallen and others nominees for the top honor. Eilish won all seven categories in which she was nominated, including Album of the Year and Favorite Touring Artist.

“This is so crazy. I feel speechless,” she said in a video message from Europe, where she is currently on tour. “I wish I could be there tonight.”

Gracie Abrams was named New Artist of the Year, while SZA earned awards for Favorite Female R&B Artist and Favorite R&B Song for “Saturn.” Becky G won Favorite Female Latin Artist.

Many of the big names nominated for awards did not attend. One such absentee was Beyonce, who claimed Favorite Female Country Artist and Favorite Country Album for “Cowboy Carter,” her first AMA wins in country categories.

Post Malone was named Favorite Male Country Artist.


Saudi Pavilion at Osaka Expo wins New York Architectural Design Awards

Updated 27 May 2025
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Saudi Pavilion at Osaka Expo wins New York Architectural Design Awards

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka-Kansai was awarded the Gold Prize in the Cultural Architecture in the Interactive and Experiential Spaces category by the New York Architectural Design Awards.

The prize recognizes the pavilion’s design and architecture, which offers visitors an immersive experience and insight into Saudi Arabia’s heritage.

According to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the pavilion was spearheaded by the Saudi Architecture and Design Commission and was led by CEO Dr. Sumayah Al-Solaiman and Project Manager Fatima Al-Doukhi. It was also designed by the renowned global firm Foster + Partners.

The design highlights the cultural similarities between the kingdom and Japan, while focusing on sustainability, employing passive cooling strategies enhanced by the strategic placement of structural blocks to facilitate wind movement.

The pavilion features low-carbon materials, energy-efficient lighting and solar energy technologies, SPA reported. It also features Braille signage and pathways for visitors with disabilities, making the building accessible and inclusive.

Saudi Arabia’s pavilion has already attracted over half a million visitors since its launch on April 13.

It has also hosted over 175 events, including cultural performances, business events, media and over 400 VIP delegations.