This thesis investigates the evolution of exhibition-making practices in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia,
spanning the years 1965 to 2022, It argues that individual artists’ travel experiences played a critical role in transforming the local exhibition landscape from informal, artist-led
presentations into increasingly professional and curatorial formats. Drawing on primary
sources including over nine artist interviews, 24 exhibition catalogues, 100 press archives,
and institutional records, the study offers the first sustained academic analysis of how
international exposure shaped curatorial strategies, spatial approaches, and conceptual
frameworks within Saudi exhibition-making. The research offers an original contribution by
tracing how, in the absence of formal art education or curatorial infrastructure, early
exhibitions were led by artists who simultaneously acted as organisers, educators, and
cultural mediators. Over time, a new generation of artists, many of whom studied or
exhibited abroad, introduced conceptual practices, collaborative models, and research-
based exhibitions that gradually shifted the scene towards contemporary formats. These
shifts are examined through key curatorial case studies such as Common Spaces (1999),
Yom (2002), Limited Edition (2011), We Need to Talk (2012), and the 21,39 Jeddah Arts
initiative (2014–2022). Rather than viewing these changes as institutionally driven, the thesis foregrounds the agency of artists and their transnational networks in redefining the purpose, form, and audience of exhibitions. It argues that travel functioned as a substitute for institutional training and as a catalyst for experimentation, opening new curatorial possibilities grounded in both global discourse and local realities.
This study contributes to scholarship on exhibition histories, curatorial practices, and art
history. It proposes a framework for understanding the professionalisation of Saudi art
exhibitions not as a linear adoption of international models, but as a complex negotiation
between personal trajectories and cultural transformation.
