Desert X AlUla 2026 brings monumental contemporary art to AlUla’s valleys, canyons, and oases as part of the fifth AlUla Arts Festival. Running from 16 January to 28 February 2026, the open-air exhibition brings together 11 site-responsive works that respond directly to AlUla’s vast terrain under the theme Space Without Measure based on the work of the Lebanese-American writer and poet Kahlil Gibran.
Monumental in scale and ambition, the commissions span sculpture, sound, earthworks, and installation, each shaped by the rhythms, histories, and physical conditions of the landscape itself.
Presented by Arts AlUla in collaboration with Desert X, this fourth edition marks a major chapter in AlUla’s emergence as a global destination for contemporary art. It also forms part of the pre-opening programme for Wadi AlFann, where art and land are conceived as inseparable.
Across varying techniques, methodologies and approaches, these work, invite viewers to move through AlUla slowly, encountering art that measures space not by scale alone, but by time, memory, and presence.
Check out our visual guide to the 11 artworks shaping Desert X AlUla 2026, from large-scale earthworks to sound and sculptural installations.
A Kingdom Where No One Dies: Contours of Resonance by Sara Abdu
What was the Question Again? by Mohammad Alfaraj
The Thorn, AlShuruf Unit, The Triangles, Flower Bud, and Al Ahilla by Mohammed AlSaleem
Bayt Al Hams (The Whispering House) by Tarek Atoui
Bloom by Bahraini-Danish
Imole Red by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons
The Living Pyramid by Agnes Denes
Haraza Tree by Ibrahim El-Salahi
Murmur of Pebbles by Basmah Felemban
Future Fables by Vibha Galhotra
Tar HyPar by Héctor Zamora
