Arduna | Exhibition catalogue

Description

As an oasis on the historic incense route that linked India and the Persian Gulf to the Levant and Europe, AlUla represented a haven and a refuge for the traders that passed through. It was thus, in some ways a small paradise, a place of rest, ontemplation and meditation. The image of paradise as a garden, an oasis in the desert of life, emerged in the Middle East. Persian and Islamic gardens are often associated with the idea of earthly paradise and symbolize the telluric manifestation of heavenly order. As in AlUla, the land rises up to meet the stars.

The exhibition takes this allegory of the garden as a point of departure. Drawing inspiration from the site of AlUla, it shows how both modern and contemporary artists explore our evolving relationship to nature and the land. With a total of 70 artworks from all disciplines, it brings together major masterpieces by both international and MENA artists from the Centre Pompidou collection and the RCU collection.

Organized into six chapters, the exhibition delves into nature's multiple manifestations, both real and imagined, on a journey though gardens, forests, deserts and their constellatory reflections in the cosmos. Through the display of impactful and thoughtprovoking artworks, it tackles the challenges the world encounters today, examining notions of the Anthropocene, the threat of climate change, migratory displacement and the spread of urbanization. As artists attempt to disentangle humankind's complex and often conflicted relationship with the environment, the exhibition can be seen as a plea for the shaping of new modes of co-existence between all forms of life.