Into the Desert: My Immersive Journey Through DesignX 2026 in AlUla
I arrived in Saudi Arabia’s AlUla just right before sunset, the desert still warm, the sandstone cliffs glowing with that impossible honey‑gold light the region is famous for. I had read endlessly about this year’s edition of Desert X AlUla – what I’m calling DesignX 2026 in my own mental map of design and art experiences – but nothing prepared me for the sensation of walking into an exhibition where the land itself feels like the curator.
Running from January 16 to February 28, 2026, the show transformed the canyons and valleys of AlUla into a living gallery under the theme “Space Without Measure,” inspired by the writings of Kahlil Gibran (“The Prophet” is my personal favourite I kept reading during my entire trip).
From the moment I stepped into Wadi AlFann, I understood what the curators – Wejdan Reda and Zoé Whitley – meant about art being an invitation rather than an object. Here, pieces don’t just sit in the landscape; they breathe with it. Light, wind, shadows, sand – everything was in conversation with the installations.
A Walk Through Eleven New Worlds
The exhibition featured 11 site‑specific commissions, each unfolding like a secret whispered by the terrain.
My journey began with Héctor Zamora’s Tar HyPar, a geometric apparition rising from the sand. Its architecture operates as a resonant instrument—an installation that not only hosts an analog sound piece but becomes the very tool that produces it. The structure directs sound toward the surrounding mountains, creating an intimate emotional exchange that pulls visitors into the acoustics of the terrain. In this shared space, the monumentality of the desert is amplified, nurturing a contemplative relationship between the land and the people who move through it.
A short wander across the sand brought me to Sara Abdu’s piece, which stopped me instantly. A Kingdom Where No One Dies: Contours of Resonance rises in rammed earth, shaped from the combined soils of AlUla and Yemen. Learning that she transformed the waveform of her own voice into this sculptural form felt deeply personal—but standing before it, with its sharp, sunlit contours, I felt as though I was reading a geological memoir etched in verse.
The Bloom kinetic sculpture by the Bahraini‑Danish collective forms a gentle, ever‑shifting presence within the AlUla landscape. Instead of relying on machinery, the artwork comes alive through the desert’s own light, with its movable elements subtly turning in response to the sun’s motion. This creates a slow, almost meditative visual cadence that echoes the natural tempo of the valley. Rather than asking viewers to interact, Bloom encourages them to pause and observe as its movement tracks the day’s changing atmosphere. The movement was so subtle, so in tune with the desert’s own rhythm, that I found myself lingering longer than I expected, letting my eyes follow its shifting patterns.
Basmah Felemban’s Murmur of Pebbles was one of those works I didn’t expect to move me as deeply as it did. When I first approached the cluster of monumental carved stones, I felt an odd sense of déjà vu, as if I’d stumbled upon something the desert had been keeping to itself for centuries. Standing before them, I became acutely aware of their quiet gravity—the way they seemed to breathe with the terrain rather than sit on top of it. Their surfaces held subtle marks and contours that echoed the surrounding cliffs, mimicking the natural erosion and geological rhythms of AlUla. I found myself circling them slowly, almost reverently, trying to decipher where the artist’s hand ended and nature’s memory began.
Sudanese modernist Ibrahim El‑Salahi presents a small “grove” of carved wooden sculptures. Haraza Tree. His installation, Haraza Tree – an extension of his ongoing meditation tree series – draws inspiration from the Haraza Acacia found along the Nile, while also echoing the acacias that take root in AlUla’s canyons. Painted in deep earth shades of black, brown, and red, these forms rise quietly from the sand like watchful guardians. As I approached, the sculptural form seemed to pulse with the artist’s unmistakable visual language, those flowing lines and organic shapes that bridge Sudanese heritage with a universal sense of mysticism. The tree didn’t read as a literal trunk or branches but as an abstraction of life itself: resilience, memory, and spiritual continuity distilled into a single form.
A short walk away, Cuban‑born artist Maria Magdalena Campos‑Pons floods the desert with a jolt of color in Imole Red. Her installation rises like a luminous, otherworldly garden—towering scarlet forms that draw from Yoruba spiritual traditions as well as the fiery radiance of an AlUla sunset. Standing among them, I felt enveloped by their intensity; the sheer scale tilts the balance of power between viewer and artwork, making me feel small in the best possible way. The installation’s bold chromatic energy and sculptural rhythm evoke a shared history of movement, identity, and resilience, reminding me how beauty can migrate across landscapes, cultures, and generations while still retaining its power to astonish.
Where Creativity and Ecology Intertwine
What struck me a lot was how deeply the exhibition was rooted in local craftsmanship and environmentally conscious practices. Many of the works relied on rammed earth, hand‑carved stone, and regionally sourced wood—materials shaped in collaboration with artisans from Madrasat Addeera and developed with guidance from environmental specialists like those at the AlUla Native Plant Nursery. This wasn’t sustainability as a buzzword; it was an integral part of how each piece came into being.
The palette, the textures, the physical presence of the materials felt less like additions to the desert and more like continuations of it. Each installation seemed calibrated to belong—capable of aging naturally with the landscape or one day dissolving back into it, leaving nothing but subtle traces in the sand. Or, like the guiding environmental and cultural philosophy for visitors to AlUla says: “Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints”.
Echoes I Carried Out of the Desert
By the time I finished wandering through the wide stretches of sand punctuated by these monumental pieces, the idea behind “Space Without Measure” felt completely clear. Out here, limits dissolve – both in the land itself and in the imagination of the artists who shaped work in response to it. AlUla and its loose sandy landscapes softens every boundary: between art and earth, between history and the present moment, between observing and truly participating.
As I walked away and the sun slipped behind the cliffs, the artworks faded gently into the evening shadows. That’s when it struck me: the desert remembers every step, yet eventually smooths them away. These artworks feel the same – powerfully rooted in the moment, yet ready to drift and reshape themselves in the landscape of my and YOUR memory.
