I Love You, Urgently looks to natural forms, communities, connections, and a level-­playing field between humans and the natural world – ideas such as camel herders singing lullabies to their animals. Its ostensible focus is the continuing climate emergency, though the artists involved in the exhibition were inspired not just by climate change, but by the strategies and shifts in mind-sets that will be necessary to improve or adapt to a changed planet.

“I asked artists to think about three core ideas,” El Khalil says. “The first was biomimicry – a connection with nature, learning from nature, from 3.8 billion years of evolution. The second was adaptability: decisions might need to be amended very quickly, and the needs themselves might need to be amended very quickly. And the third was specificity: to look at our environment and to think, what are the specific needs?” Each of the works on show were commissioned, and the 21, 39 organisers worked with the artists from research phase to final result.

The seventh 21,39, the Jeddah Arts Week, has opened in the Red Sea city today. Curated by Maya El Khalil and titled I Love You, Urgently, the week consists of talks and a central exhibition. It concentrates on ecology and sustainability, inspired by the work of German architect Frei Otto, who built a number of projects in Saudi Arabia.

Community and the environment permeate the exhibition’s projects. They range from an analysis of the unique ecosystem formed by the Al Manakh concrete factory outside of Riyadh, in a project by Fahad bin Naif and Alaa Tarabzouni, to interventions in Jeddah’s Al Balad, or Old Town, neighbourhood. As El Khalil noted at the press conference, Al Balad is itself a unique ecosystem, with its Unesco-protected carved wooden doors and traditional houses.

بدعم من ووزارة الثقافة السعودية، دشن المجلس الفني السعودي النسخة السابعة من معرض 21ØŒ39 فن جدة تحت عنوان “أيتها الأرض” والذي يحوي اعمالاً تتناول مواضيع الاستدامة البيئية واستكشاف طرق بديلة للتعايش والحياة على كوكبنا من خلال برنامج فني وثقافي وتعليمي يشمل معارض وورش عمل وحوارات نقاشات، وبرنامج تعليمي عام واسع النطاق.

ويضم معرض ” أيتها الأرض” الذي يقام من 28 يناير الى 18 أبريل في كل من مقر المجلس الفني السعودي والمنطقة التاريخية بجدة القديمة أعمالاً لأكثر من 60 فنان ومهندس معماري ومصمم ومفكر محلي ودولي تبحث عن التحديات الناجمة عن تدمير البيئة الطبيعية وتعتبر مبادرة هذا العام استمرارا لرسالة المجلس الفني السعودي والتي تهدف إلى تنمية مشهد الفن المحلي وبناء الجسور مع عالم الفن الدولي.

This year, the Saudi Art Council event has been given the title “I Love You, Urgently,” as a call to action in response to the global environmental emergency. With Saudi society undergoing a rapid transformation, the council asked local and international figures from the worlds of art, architecture and design to seek tangible solutions to the crisis and come up with alternative and symbiotic ways of living on our planet.

A wide range of Saudi, Arab and European artists and creators are taking part. They include Ayman Zedani, Aziz Jamal, Cristiana De Marchi, Daniah Al-Saleh, Duran Lantink, Fahad bin Naif & Alaa Tarabzouni, Farah K. Behbehani, Filwa Nazer, Maha Nasrallah, Manal Al-Dowayan, Marwah Al-Mugait, Mohammad Al-Faraj, Mohammed Kazem, Muhannad Shono, Obadah Aljefri, Omar Abduljawad, Nasser Al-Salem, Nojoud Al-Sudairi, Raja’a Khalid, Sultan Bin Fahd and Zahrah Al-Ghamdi.

Anyone active in the Middle Eastern contemporary art scene will not have forgotten Sultan Bin Fahad’s The Red Palace exhibition in Riyadh, which opened in March and moved to Jeddah’s Al Khuzam Palace in June. Not only did it mark the first time a historic Saudi palace was open to the public but also revealed Sultan’s artistic journey between the intangible and tangible memories and cultures that make up contemporary Saudi existence. A step inside his artful abode in Riyadh whisks one off to another time and place.

There’s a nod to the elegance of Venetian and Moorish architecture through Serlian-style windows, a long arched corridor reminiscent of French neo-classicism and urban brick walls that celebrate edgy modernism of New York-style living. “My wife, Deena, has a great imagination for detail and I have a good imagination for space,” says Sultan.

The resulting video, Sarab (2016), was included in “Naphtha,” a summer exhibition curated by artist Moath Alofi at the Khuzam Palace in Jeddah and organized by the Saudi ministry of culture. It stands as a provocative representation of the changes taking place in the country, and a potent symbol of its attempted break with the past as it enters new terrain under 33-year-old crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MbS, who has promised modernizing reforms.

 “When things move fast and you are in the middle of them, you cannot comprehend the speed,” says Mohammed Hafiz, an art collector and co-founder of Athr Gallery, a contemporary art space established in Jeddah in 2009.

THE RED PALACE RETURNS TO LIVE

It is in Riyadh that the artist Sultan bin Fahad (Riyad, 1971) - a member of the royal family and one of the most active and enthusiastic promoters and initiators of the change - installed a monumental exhibition divided into seven chapters, curated by Reem Fadda, in the evocative spaces and délabré of the Red Palace. Center of power and magnificence, the Palace, completed in 1944 - the first building in the capital to be built with concrete and iron-steel - was the residence of the then Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz, later the office of the Saudi Ministers Council and until 1987 the Palace of complaints. It has been closed and abandoned for twenty years and after the exhibition it will be converted into a hotel.

The artist has long been fascinated by the palace and his exhibition, through installations, videos and photographs, talks about the events that took place there - from the power meetings behind the scenes to the work of the many attendants who worked there - over the years and the history of the country. Family history. "On the evening of the opening to the public, " he says, " I met a lady in her nineties who told me that she lived in the Palace. Walking with his grandchildren he recognized the various rooms. He began to cry, seized by nostalgia and the many memories of his days spent in the Palace ”