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Untitled work by Saudi artist Fatima Hassan Assiri

From genteel family scenes and intricate Islamic calligraphy to the ever-changing tapestry of Arabic life and surrealistic Labubus, to dreams conjured in pure batik — the ongoing Horizon in Their Hands at the Ithra Museum in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, is a marvel of women’s power.

Hosted in collaboration with the UAE-based Barjeel Art Foundation and curated by Rémi Homs, this landmark exhibition inside the Snøhetta-designed, pebble-shaped King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture shines a light on the works of 50 seminal women artists from the Arab world, especially focusing on the period between the 1960s and ’80s, as these were the decades when major social and political changes were sweeping through the Arab-sphere. “During the 1960s and ’80s, many countries from these regions gained independence, new nation-states emerged, and rapid modernisation in major cities reshaped the relationship between urban and rural areas. Within this context, numerous artists represented in this show incorporated craft into their practice as a means of exploring and expressing ideas of modernity.

“Women artists played a fundamental role in this endeavour, although their contributions have often been sidelined in mainstream art history,” explains curator Rémi Homs, who’s based in Dubai, Paris and Beirut. It won’t exactly be wrong to state that Horizon in Their Hands has been designed to serve as a corrective to that historical snub. Spanning generations, geographies and movements, Horizon in Their Hands features artists from over 12 countries (Kuwait, Morocco, Tunisia, Bahrain, Syria, Algeria, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, among several others), including such celebrated names as Sheikha Ibrahim, Fêla Kéfi, Nadia Mohamed, Reda Ahmed, Safia Farhat, Safeya Binzagr, Mona Al-Munajjed, Nawal Kamal, Fatima Hassan El Farouj, Mounirah Mosly and the Egypt-based collective, Wissa Wassef Art Centre. Rooted in the Arabic cultural context, the exhibition honours artists who pioneered vernacular crafts-based traditions such as textile, henna, embroidery, glass, brass, tapestry, ceramics and mixed media, offering visitors not only different entry points into the incredibly plural universe of Arabic female voices, but also the myriad ways in which they overcame male-dominated challenges of the art world to shape modern art in their own regions and leave behind a profound historical imprint.

Extensively researched and thoughtfully conceptualised, Horizon in Their Hands does not simply disrupt the gendered playbook — the art world remains a man’s game, but thankfully, times and tides are turning, as women artists are increasingly emerging, individually and en masse, from the margins onto the centrestage — it also blurs the boundaries between fine art and craft. These powerful works remind us that art conjured from everyday objects and domestic materials is equally valuable as long as it has an authentic soul, genuine craftsmanship and a personal touch. The artists in Horizon in Their Hands created art in the time of social upheaval. They drew from their immediate surroundings, often using humble materials and local techniques available to them to unleash their inner creativity. Today, historians call it cultural reclamation, but the era in which these artists were active and working with such neologisms did not yet exist. In many cases, the materials used by our feisty female brigade were reimagined in subtly subversive ways. Take the Emirati artist Najat Makki, whose abstract work from 1987 (titled Window) was made using henna — a traditional form long dismissed as a female hobby; but Makki’s art challenges the very Eurocentric notion of what constitutes fine art. Similarly, Aïcha Haddad turned to plaster for a panel in her work Cité du M’zab (1984) at a time when there was an acute shortage of canvas in her native Algeria. Walking around, one encounters Fela Kefi’s ceramics reflecting Tunisia’s agricultural revolution and Vera Tamari’s self-referential relief, Palestinian  Women   at   Work (1979,) while Mona Al-Munajjed’s striking Minaret of the Mosque (1984), depicting the bygone charm of old Jeddah, showcases her mastery in gutta and batik technique. Nearby, Sheikha Ibrahim’s embroideries evoke daily life in her Palestinian village and Safia Farhat’s beautiful tapestry La Mariée (The Bride) catches one’s eye — as do the vibrant works of the weavers at the Wissa Wassef Art Centre (which has preserved traditional Egyptian weaving, handicrafts and tapestry-making techniques against rampant commercialisation and modernisation).

Farah Abushullaih, head of the Ithra Museum

An important thread that runs throughout the show is the contribution of Saudi women artists themselves. Fatima Hassan Assiri’s panel stands as a rich epitome of a traditional Saudi art form called Al Qatt Al Asiri that originated in the Asir region, on the southern edge of the Kingdom. Both an artist and a scholar, Mona Al-Munajjed belongs to a generation of Saudi creatives committed to documenting the history of modern Saudi Arabia. “Alongside her extensive work on gender and development projects across the Arab world, Mona Al-Munajjed has nurtured her artistic practice since childhood. Her work sits at the fertile intersection of art and craft, particularly through her mastery of gutta and batik techniques. In a sense, she is not only a guardian of traditional techniques but also a chronicler of the cultural heritage of her native country,” argues Homs. How can any exhibition of this kind and magnitude be complete without Safeya Binzagr — the legendary figure who played a pivotal role in nurturing art and culture in Saudi Arabia? There’s a selection of Binzagr’s sketches and paintings in the In Focus section. “Safeya Binzagr is a pioneer in terms of art history from the region, as she was the first woman to have a solo exhibition in the Kingdom in 1968. Her work sought to document the traditions of the region, spending time to depict its architecture, its traditional garments, and activities such as falconry,” says Homs, who’s visibly excited about Horizon in Their Hands as it happens to be Barjeel Art Foundation’s first exhibition in Saudi Arabia. “The show has been in the making since early 2025,” Homs reveals. It began with a common commitment from Barjeel Art Foundation and Ithra to celebrate artistic creations from the Arab world. “At the heart of both our institutions lies a dedication to cultural heritage, and our collections serve as a means to express and share it,” he adds. Established by Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi in 2010, the Sharjah-based Barjeel Art Foundation is home to a sprawling collection of over 2,000 artworks from the Arab world. Over the past decade and a half, it has become a global player known for bringing Arab histories to some of the world’s most prestigious platforms.

For Ithra, or the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, it is important that these voices are heard. “What inspired me in preparing this exhibition is that these artists made work in homes, in classrooms they built for themselves, and in studios that were often invisible to institutions,” Farah Abushullaih, head of the Ithra Museum, tells wknd. Today, when Saudi Arabia is redefining what progress means, these stories demonstrate that cultural change has always had a quiet, persistent engine — the graceful presence of women, making, teaching, archiving and inspiring positive social change. “Their narratives matter because they expand perspectives and fill in knowledge gaps we have on record. They show that artistic modernity in the Arab world wasn’t a single road; it was many paths — craft elevated to fine art, Islamic geometry reimagined, domestic spaces turned into sites of innovation. For our younger audiences, especially girls, this is representation and a set of working models. It says, ‘You can inherit tradition and still invent a future’,” muses Abushullaih. That mix of continuity, innovation and a moment where past meets the future and local greets the global is precisely what Horizon in Their Hands captures so perfectly.

Horizon in Their Hands: Women Artists from the Arab World (1960s–1980s) will be on view at Ithra Museum, Dhahran until February 14, 2026  

wknd@khaleejtimes.com

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