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RIYADH: The Museums Commission has launched the second phase of the interactive traveling exhibition “Our Saudi Narrative: A Window into Museums” at Al-Masmak Palace in Riyadh’s Al-Deera district.

Running until Nov. 11, and free to the public, the exhibition showcases collections from regional museums through cutting-edge technologies that blend digital media, motion design, and sound effects.

It also features 11 artifacts, digitally represented in an interactive environment, designed to balance authenticity with innovation.

The exhibition began its journey in Buraidah, Al-Qassim, and will continue on to Najran and Jeddah. Each stop will be customized to reflect the cultural character of its location and the diversity of its collections.

According to the Museums Commission, this project is a part of ongoing efforts to raise awareness of ��������’s heritage and present it in innovative ways that resonate with young people.

The exhibition has been described as a bridge between the past, present, and future, reimagining the role of museums from traditional display spaces into dynamic platforms for knowledge and creative interaction.

The initiative aligns with the Museums Sector Strategy, inspired by Saudi Vision 2030, which aims to transform these institutions into cultural and social development hubs.

UZBEKISTAN: Uzbekistan launched its inaugural international art biennial this month. “Recipes for Broken Hearts” runs until Nov. 20 in Bukhara, and includes works from Saudi artists Ahmad Angawi and Dana Awartani. The theme is sustenance as healing — of both body and mind — connecting cultural memory, craft, community and art. 

Local folklore goes that plov — the signature rice-and-meat medley — was created to mend the broken heart of an emir’s son who fell for a lowly craftsman’s daughter he was forbidden from marrying. To restore him, the court healer ordered rice, meat, carrots and onions to be simmered together in a large pot. From heartbreak was born plov, a dish nourishing both body and spirit and intended to be consumed communally, even if only one person is actually brokenhearted.  

It’s a legend that has spread to ��������, too. If you’re heartbroken in Jeddah, then “Bukhari rice” is said to cure you, highlighting the centuries-old culinary and cultural ties between the two cities. 

“Bukhara is a city that has always captured the human imagination. For over two millennia, its streets, monuments, and stories have shaped — and been shaped by — the movement of people, ideas, and cultures,” said Gayane Umerova, chairperson of the Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF) of Uzbekistan, founded in 2017. “Choosing Bukhara as the host city for Uzbekistan’s first international art biennial was not a gesture of nostalgia, it was an act of conviction; a belief that this remarkable city could once again stand as a global center of creativity, dialogue and exchange.” 

Umerova, 40, has long championed extending Uzbekistan’s cultural vision beyond its borders. The ACDF participated at the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah in 2023, and the Diriyah Biennale Foundation brought its 2025 AlMusalla Prize winner to Bukhara — underlining a growing link between the Saudi and Central Asian contemporary art scenes. 

“Recipes for Broken Hearts,” according to artistic director Diana Campbell, “invites practitioners from the visual arts, craft, culinary arts, sound, design and fashion, as well as visitors, to metaphorically bring something to the table—creating a collection of heart-mending recipes born in Bukhara. 

“(The heart is) more than a physical organ, it functions as a locus of identity and loss, connecting the mind, soul, and body, and bridging material and spiritual worlds,” Campbell continued. “It also plays a core role in art.” 

For each of the 70 commissioned projects included in the biennial, an artist was paired with an Uzbek artisan. 

Angawi, for example — who described Bukhara as his “second home” and told Arab News that it “reminds me of old Jeddah” — worked with Uzbek woodcarver, Ilyor Jumaev to create the outdoor installation “Al-Jabr & Al-Jazr: The Algorithm of Healing.” Al-Jabr means ‘restoration’ while Al-Jazr means ‘root extraction.’  

The installation features a wooden panjara screen crafted by Jumaev. Layered colors move in an algorithmic rhythm inspired by Islamic Golden Age mathematician Al-Khawarizmi, while evoking the color therapy of the Persian philosopher and physician Ibn Sina: red for vitality, yellow for clarity, blue for calm. At night, light seeps through the wooden screen, inviting passersby to witness the city as a living act of restoration. 

“The human heart can be rebalanced through knowledge,” Angawi said. “I offer a gesture of restoration — craft becomes code, and the city, like the heart, begins to remember how to heal.”  

Saudi-Palestinian artist Awartani, meanwhile, collaborated with Uzbek master artisan Behzod Turdiyev on “Standing by the Ruins IV,” situated in the Rashid Madrasa courtyard. It utilizes architectural fragments from sites endangered by conflict. Awartani drew inspiration from Gaza’s historic Hamam al-Sammara, destroyed in 2023, and used Palestinian clay to reconstruct its lost geometric motifs — bringing fragments of her homeland into the project. She wrote in her artist statement: “Every project is, in essence, a process of mending a broken heart. The heartbreak is embedded in the material itself — in the earth, in the soil — which those of us living in exile and diaspora can never fully process.” 

Assistant curator Timur Zolotoev, originally from Buryatia, told Arab News the biennial is a transformative experience.  

“It’s a feast that brings together everyone around one table, in a conversation, equally, where food is shared, where conversation is shared, where people open their hearts.” He cited immersive installations, puppet theaters, and kiosks selling local goods overlooking ruins as highlights of the event. “I wasn’t sure what was going to come out of it, because no one has done it before; neither the artist nor the artisan,” he said. 

“Bukhara, with its intact historic core and living traditions is the perfect place to stage an event like this,” he continued. “It opens your heart not just to the art, but to the city itself, to the people and their stories. It shows that art can truly discover something new when it collaborates with craft, history, and the local community.”