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This year we are celebrating the fifth year of Saudi-French cooperation for AlUla. On April 10, 2018, at the Elysée Palace, France and Saudi Arabia signed a major agreement for the sustainable development of this region with such an exceptional heritage.
As a result of this agreement, the French Agency for AlUla Development (AFALULA) has worked closely with its Saudi partner, the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU), for the past 5 years, on a host of projects, covering urban renovation, archaeological sites, hotel facilities, training programmes, creating agricultural networks and partnerships with leading French institutions. All these projects are playing a key part in establishing the international outreach of AlUla.
On March 12, 2023, French Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak’s visit to Riyadh and AlUla led to the signing of a partnership agreement between the RCU and the Centre Pompidou. Signed by Laurent Le Bon, President of the Centre Pompidou, and Nora Aldabal, Director of Artistic and Cultural Programming at the RCU, at the initiative of AFALULA, this partnership marks the launch of the project to create a Contemporary Art Museum in AlUla. It will also contribute to the enhancing and developing AlUla’s cultural, creative and artistic spaces.
On March 12, 2023, French Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak’s visit to Riyadh and AlUla led to the signing of a partnership agreement between the RCU and the Centre Pompidou.
Signed by Laurent Le Bon, President of the Centre Pompidou, and Nora Aldabal, Director of Artistic and Cultural Programming at the RCU, at the initiative of AFALULA, this partnership marks the launch of the project to create a Contemporary Art Museum in AlUla. It will also contribute to the enhancing and developing of AlUla’s cultural, creative and artistic spaces.
Initiated by AFALULA and the RCU, the musical programme “Sous les étoiles d’AlUla” was filmed in the heart of the AlUla desert in the Maraya theatre. Dedicated to French songs, it was broadcast on March 24 on TV5 Monde to mark World Francophonie Day. Highlighting Saudi-French friendship and cultural dialogue, this special evening brought together French and Saudi artists on stage, as well as French and Saudi publics in the audience.
Feriel Fodil was recently appointed as CEO of the Villa Hegra, an exceptional institution dedicated to arts and culture. Villa Hegra will be an incubator for artists and creators, structured around a number of complementary cultural spaces. It will encourage artistic creativity through the implementation of ambitious projects and will embody the meeting point between the heart of the Arab world and French creative spirit.
In the architecture competition to design the villa, Lacaton & Vassal, winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2021, were selected by a jury chaired by Jean Nouvel.
The first presentation on the Dadan site in AlUla was held on March 16 at the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Co-directors of the Dadan Archaeological Project, Jérome Rohmer, from the CNRS, and Abdulrahman Alsuhaibani, from the RCU, shared the results of the intensive excavations on site to an enthusiastic audience, and presented the sandstone colossus that went on display in September 2022 for a period of five years in the museum’s Near Eastern Antiquities department.
The eleventh annual FEI (Fédération équestre internationale) Sports Forum was held on April 24 and 25, in Lausanne, Switzerland. Teams from AFALULA, the RCU and the Saudi Equestrian Federation took part in this major international competition event, aiming to position AlUla as a sporting reference in the region.
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