Saudi artist Obaid Alsafi (b. 1991, based in Riyadh) has won the sixth edition of the Ithra Art Prize, which includes a USD$100,000 prize and up to $400,000 worth of funding to realise the proposed project.
The selection was made after a call for proposals of public artworks designed for the landscape of AlUIa, Saudi Arabia – under the theme of ‘Art in the Landscape’ – and that utilise materials supporting local crafts and industry.
In Alsafi’s proposal of a large-scale installation, ‘Palms in Eternal Embrace’, over 30 trunks of endangered local palm trees would be arranged in a structure to echo the 6,000-year-old stone Columns of Rajajil in the Al Jawf region of Saudi Arabia. With locally-sourced textiles weaving together the trunks, the work will look to draw on Saudi Arabia’s tradition of rope and Leifa making as well as its prehistoric shifts in societal form resulting from climate change. Alsafi taught computer science at Al Maarefa Colleges for Medical and Technical Sciences in Ryadh from 2014–17. His work often uses digital media to explore unseen aspects of life and visible realities.
The jury team of this year’s Ithra Art Prize consists of Farah Abushullaih, Head of Museum at Ithra; Nora Aldabal, Executive Director of Arts and Creative Industries at the Royal Commission for AlUla; Mohamed Ibrahim, Emirati Artist; Sophie Makariou, Scientific Director for Culture and Heritage, AFALULA; and Aric Chen, General and Artistic Director, Het Nieuwe Instituut.
Obaid Alsafi’s ‘Palms in Eternal Embrace’ will be installed at the third edition of the Arts AlUla Festival, scheduled to open on 8 February.
