Traces of What Will Be

Set in Tahlia, a district in Riyadh whose name means desalination, the 2026 edition of the Tuwaiq Sculpture Symposium and Exhibition unfolds under the theme Traces of What Will Be. This year’s edition explores transformation as both a physical process and a metaphor for urban renewal. Tahlia is inseparable from its history as the site of Riyadh’s first desalination plant, a pioneering infrastructure that converted scarcity into sustenance, and saltwater into life.

The Kingdom’s journey with desalination began in 1907, when a salvaged shipwreck was repurposed in Jeddah. From that ingenious beginning, Saudi Arabia became the world’s largest producer of desalinated water. This technology now sustains life in coastal cities around the globe. Tahlia’s early embrace of desalination reflects a broader civic urgency, grounded in innovation, adaptability, and collective well-being.

The symposium celebrates this legacy by inviting artists to respond to a site shaped by environmental ingenuity and transformation. Working with local stone and reclaimed metal, materials that hold both memory and potential, artists will create new sculptural works that mark the present while imagining the future. Tahlia will become a shared space for artistic production, reflection, and global exchange, culminating in an exhibition at the very site of their creation.