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AlUla residencies have been designed using a bottom-up approach, in coordination with local communities, connecting traditional know-how to contemporary design practices, while drawing on local material and immaterial resources. Sustainability is understood here in the broadest sense. Ecologically, we prioritize restraint through the rehabilitation of old hotel buildings, for example, rather than undertaking new build developments, together with using reversible systems, short supply chains, local materials and "low-tech" whenever possible. Socially, the program functions as a laboratory based on proximity: research focused around artisans and workshops, skills transfer, enhancement of local value chains, and fair compensation for each link.

We also embrace the long term: extended residencies and reduced travel provide a real immersion into the complexity of AlUla. Clearly, not everything can be produced locally yet, as supply chains are still being established, but each project contributes to creating an ecosystem within the territory: consolidating micro-economies, documenting techniques, opening production workshops, and more. It is not about importing a set format, but about implementing a program where external development and local practice can learn to advance together.

To support this, each artist and designer benefits from personalized guidance from an expert in art and sustainability, Alice Audouin.

In the context of artist residencies, how are sustainability issues taken into account?

Head of Arts at AFALULA

ARNAUD MORAND

TWO QUESTIONS FOR ...

•••

 

We also experimented with nomadic forms in live performance — with the body and the desert as the only stages — to avoid heavy scenic production (sound systems, sets, lighting, machinery). The commission given to choreographer Noé Soulier, in partnership with the Opéra de Paris, clearly aimed in this direction. Without being the main driving force, I would say that sustainability was intimately linked to our curatorial approach: a method that connects landscape, cultural practice, the local economy, and a unique memory of place.

Hand in hand with my co-commissioner Wejdan Reda, we envisioned a preview season located outside the walls: multidisciplinary, rooted in the landscapes and communities of AlUla, and deliberately small in scale. Our remit was simple: keep it low-key, focusing on long-term thinking and local co-construction. Concretely, we favor lightweight and reversible formats, with works and installations designed to be in dialogue with the site rather than imposing a fixed framework: following the philosophy of Lacaton & Vassal, architects of the future institution. It was therefore natural that we turned toward performance and choreography, which played a major role in our programming.

 

From an artistic standpoint, we asked the artists to embrace the site-specific and the ephemeral, paying particular attention to the materials of the territory and its heritage. The installation-performance NEUMA: The Forgotten Ceremony by Sarah Brahim and Ugo Schiavi, developed over a long cycle, is emblematic of this approach. It draws from the rituals and layers of the AlUla landscape. The installation was brought to life by the residents of AlUla, who worked for several months alongside the artists and became the main performers in an open-air presentation in the Wadi Al-Naam canyon.

 

•••

You were co-curator of the 2023–2024 prefiguration

program of Villa Hegra.

How did its programming and activities integrate sustainability issues?

In the context of artist residencies,

how are sustainability issues taken into account?

 

AlUla residencies have been designed using a bottom-up approach, in coordination with local communities, connecting traditional know-how to contemporary design practices, while drawing on local material and immaterial resources. Sustainability is understood here in the broadest sense. Ecologically, we prioritize restraint through the rehabilitation of old hotel buildings, for example, rather than undertaking new build developments, together with using reversible systems, short supply chains, local materials and "low-tech" whenever possible. Socially, the program functions as a laboratory based on proximity: research focused around artisans and workshops, skills transfer, enhancement of local value chains, and fair compensation for each link.

We also embrace the long term: extended residencies and reduced travel provide a real immersion into the complexity of AlUla. Clearly, not everything can be produced locally yet, as supply chains are still being established, but each project contributes to creating an ecosystem within the territory: consolidating micro-economies, documenting techniques, opening production workshops, and more. It is not about importing a set format, but about implementing a program where external development and local practice can learn to advance together.

To support this, each artist and designer benefits from personalized guidance from an expert in art and sustainability, Alice Audouin.

 

 

You were co-curator of the 2023–2024 prefiguration program of Villa Hegra.

How did its programming and activities integrate sustainability issues?

 

Hand in hand with my co-commissioner Wejdan Reda, we envisioned a preview season located outside the walls: multidisciplinary, rooted in the landscapes and communities of AlUla, and deliberately small in scale. Our remit was simple: keep it low-key, focusing on long-term thinking and local co-construction. Concretely, we favor lightweight and reversible formats, with works and installations designed to be in dialogue with the site rather than imposing a fixed framework: following the philosophy of Lacaton & Vassal, architects of the future institution. It was therefore natural that we turned toward performance and choreography, which played a major role in our programming.

 

From an artistic standpoint, we asked the artists to embrace the site-specific and the ephemeral, paying particular attention to the materials of the territory and its heritage. The installation-performance NEUMA: The Forgotten Ceremony by Sarah Brahim and Ugo Schiavi, developed over a long cycle, is emblematic of this approach. It draws from the rituals and layers of the AlUla landscape. The installation was brought to life by the residents of AlUla, who worked for several months alongside the artists and became the main performers in an open-air presentation in the Wadi Al-Naam canyon.

 

We also experimented with nomadic forms in live performance — with the body and the desert as the only stages — to avoid heavy scenic production (sound systems, sets, lighting, machinery). The commission given to choreographer Noé Soulier, in partnership with the Opéra de Paris, clearly aimed in this direction. Without being the main driving force, I would say that sustainability was intimately linked to our curatorial approach: a method that connects landscape, cultural practice, the local economy, and a unique memory of place.

 

 

 

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