Diriyah Art Futures (DAF), an asset of the Museums Commission under the Saudi Ministry of Culture, has announced the lineup for CONTINUUM ‘26, an exhibition celebrating the creative output of the participants in its second Emerging New Media Artists Programme.
The first New Media Arts centre in the Middle East and North Africa, DAF is dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary creative practice at the intersection of art, science and technology. The exhibition reflects DAF’s efforts to combine arts, research and education to empower the next generation of artists, foster new forms of creative expression and expand Saudi Arabia’s creative ecosystem in line with the ambitions of the Museums Commission as part of Saudi Vision 2030.
Running from September 3 to November 7, 2026 in Diriyah, Riyadh, CONTINUUM '26 is the second instalment in an annual exhibition series spotlighting innovative voices shaping the future of new media and digital art in the region and beyond.
Curated by Irini Papadimitriou, Director of Exhibitions at Diriyah Art Futures, the exhibition brings together a diverse selection of 16 emerging artists from across the globe, including: Omar Adel (Egypt), Fai Ahmed (Saudi Arabia), Dina Khalil (Egypt), Badriyah Alsalem (Kuwait), Ezzat Shdad (Yemen), Foreseen Agency (Hong Kong), SCARLETMOTIFF / Noel Apitta (Uganda), Linda Dong (China), Y7 / Hannah Cobb & Declan Colquitt (United Kingdom), Harpreet Sareen (India), Evgenii Popov (Russia), Gabriela Reyes / CERO TRES (Mexico), Njood Albawardi (Saudi Arabia), and Mena El Shazly (Egypt).
CONTINUUM ’26 showcases the artists’ major new works developed during a year-long educational programme at Diriyah Art Futures with support from across DAF’s Education, Production, and Exhibition departments. Working under the mentorship of acclaimed mentor-artists Louis-Philippe Demers and Rick Treweek, the participants explored new forms of creative expression spanning immersive and multimedia installations, light, sound, moving image, virtual reality, mixed reality, and AI-generated projects.
The title CONTINUUM speaks to the ever-evolving nature of creative inquiry that defines the Emerging New Media Artists programme. It represents a dynamic process where divergent artistic trajectories converge in shared thematic inquiries. This continuum reflects both the developmental journey of the participating artists and the fluid boundaries of the topics explored: worlds between reality and artificial reality, organic and synthetic, and human and artificial intelligences.
The exhibition is structured around four key thematic pillars that bridge technological experimentation with deeply human questions:
* Memory as a Living Process: Exploring personal, collective, environmental, and cultural remembering.
* Systems of Power and Optimisation: Examining technology as an extension of human decisions, desires, and control.
* The Body, Perception, and Presence: Shifting focus toward embodiment, interspecies relationships, and immersive sensory environments.
* Repetition, Rhythm, and Collective Experience: Exploring the choreography of automated systems, labour, and human endurance.
Alongside the cohort, the exhibition features works by the programme’s mentors. Canadian multidisciplinary artist Louis-Philippe Demers presents Radiant Bodies, an interactive public installation translating human gesture into collective choreography, and South African artist Rick Treweek presents Ghost Out The Shell, which uses virtual reality and sculpture to explore physical and virtual identities.
CONTINUUM ’26 is open to the public at Diriyah Art Futures. The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive public programme of activities including talks, practical workshops, and masterclasses. - TradeArabia News Service
