María Magdalena Campos-Pons unveils “Imole Red” – a sight specific sculptural work in Saudi Arabia
Desert X 2026
AlUla, Saudi Arabia
January 16 – February 28, 2026
Curated by Wejdan Reda and Zoé Whitley, under the vision of Founding Artistic Director Neville Wakefield and returning 2026 Artistic Director Raneem Farsi, Desert X AlUla 2026 will showcase visionary contemporary artworks by Saudi and international artists, reflecting the region’s long history of cross-cultural exchange.
Open now to February 28, 2026, Desert X AlUla will feature 11 new site specific artworks installed in the landscape of AlUla. Inspired by the poetry of Kahlil Gibran, this year’s theme, Space Without Measure, presents each artwork as a point on a new map, marking flourishes of imagination, from flowering utopias to previously inconceivable vistas, and sound corridors.
This 2026 edition brings together 11 artists whose diverse and monumental works reflect a wide spectrum of ideas, materials and traditions. From monumental kinetic sculpture to sound-based explorations above and below ground, each commission is deeply rooted in relationships to AlUla’s dynamic and distinctive environment.
The participating artists are:
- Sara Abdu
- Mohammad Alfaraj
- Mohammed AlSaleem
- Tarek Atoui
- Bahraini-Danish
- Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons
- Agnes Denes
- Ibrahim El-Salahi
- Basmah Felemban
- Vibha Galhotra
- Héctor Zamora
Since its inaugural edition in 2020, Desert X AlUla has steadily built a rich legacy of site-specific artworks that respond to the desert’s extraordinary landscapes, and produced 50 artwork projects for AlUla. Desert X AlUla aims to contribute to and continue the artistic heritage of the local community and region.
Imole Red
María Magdalena Campos-Pons
Campos-Pons’ Statement
Initially I started reading about the history of AlUla to familiarize myself with the social and horticultural topography, from afar. However, arriving here was a different story. This is a place where I feel full of mystical energy; it is a profound, spiritual place. This is a cathedral of the air. Imole Red in the North Canyon of Desert X AlUla 2026 is a gesture to reconnect with nature, an invitation to have a conversation with the colors and textures surrounding us. This canyon is a garden. The contours of the rock change chromatically in the sun, from yellow, ochre, red, to purple and blue. I am trying to synthesize color, light and energy into a blossoming, alchemical garden.
‘Imole’ references the word in Yoruba language that means light. The sunset here is extraordinary. I work within what I call the color code of the Yoruba pantheon, and have focused on yellow and gold, the hues associated with sunset reflecting on the water. These are associated with Oshun, deity of the river that bears her name, symbolic of spiritual vitality and life’s flow. Placing the sculpture in a flood plain honors the valley’s past, a place where our human scale demands humility.
I make work about my heritage but always attuned to the interrelation of other bodies in specific geographies. How do we each respond to being in a new place? Can I insert a new provocation, rooted in radical love, in a context with its own particular lineage. Radical Love is about human proximity, finding what brings us together in a shared destiny on this planet.
One answer to these questions is a performance offering. As part of my collaboration as one half of KaMag (with musician and composer Kamaal Malak), we will consider how these elements can converge: the magnitude, the elegance, the mystery transformed into sound and improvised choreography. It is astonishing how simple movements, words uttered with love for all, can speak to the extraordinary complexity that exists here in AlUla.
From setting foot in this landscape, every corner reminds me of the work of my fellow Cuban artist, the late Ana Mendieta. I believe this place is an incredible, beautiful gift from nature back to us. I can only make parallel notations in response.
About the Artist
Born 1959, Matanzas, Cuba, María Magdalena Campos-Pons self-describes as a gatherer, a conduit and a vessel, and draws on Afro-Cuban systems of belief to summon the spiritual as a way of transcending historical trauma. Known for her photographic self-portraits and ritualistic performances, Campos-Pons also creates multi-media installations. She uses artisanal objects and archival photographs to symbolize the lost histories of the dispossessed, giving them vivid new life.
Her work has been exhibited and performed at the Venice Biennale; documenta 14; Havana Biennial; Dakar Biennale; Johannesburg Biennale; Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA; Guggenheim Museum; National Portrait Gallery,Washington, DC; Sharjah Biennial 15 UAE; 14th Gwangju Biennale, Tate Modern London: and After Rain, 2nd edition of Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale Riyadh.
In 2023 a multi-media survey of her work titled María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold toured from the Brooklyn Museum to the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the Frist Art Museum, culminating with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2025.
Campos-Pons’s work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; amongst many others.
Campos-Pons is also the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Fine Arts at Vanderbilt University and has founded numerous artist-run programs such as GASP (Boston, 2003), EADJ (Nashville, 2018) and Intermittent Rivers (Cuba, 2019).
Desert X
Desert X is produced by The Desert Biennial, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization founded in California, conceived to produce recurring international contemporary art exhibitions that activate desert locations through site-specific installations by acclaimed international artists. Its guiding purposes and principles include presenting public exhibitions of art that respond meaningfully to the conditions of desert locations, the environment and Indigenous communities; promoting cultural exchange and education programs that foster dialogue and understanding among cultures and communities about shared artistic, historical, and societal issues; and providing an accessible platform for artists from around the world to address ecological, cultural, spiritual, and other existential themes.
Mission
To create and present international contemporary art exhibitions that engage with desert environments through site-specific installations by acclaimed artists from around the world.
History
The history of Desert X is short but mighty. It is an organization founded on the love of contemporary art and its ability to create cross-cultural dialogue while simultaneously engaging audiences and artists who find the walls of museums and galleries somewhat stifling. Its mission has always been ambitious, seeking to present curated exhibitions of site-specific work by international artists who can amplify the beauty of the desert environment, while also creating a visual response to issues of vast importance to today’s global citizenry.
From its beginning, the organization has called on all its audiences to be brave, engage their sense of adventure, and open their hearts as they seek the various art installations, paying attention not only to their physicality but also to the stories they tell emotionally, historically, or socially.
The first Desert X took place in 2017 and included 16 artists who created works for locations from Whitewater Preserve to Coachella. The exhibition and each of the artists received grand acclaim. Since then, a total of 5 biennial exhibitions have taken place in the Coachella Valley, welcoming an audience of over 2M. Since 2020, the organization has engaged in exhibitions outside the United States and helped establish the Desert X AlUla exhibition, in the desert of Saudi Arabia bringing together artists from across that region as well as those from Europe and the U.S.