ike mobile phones, which connect people living thousands of kilometres away, water binds the heaven and the earth. According to Muslim thought, the paradise contains four rivers; according to general observation, water comes from above. The heavens talks to earth in the language of rain. The memory of that contact/ conversation is preserved in a peculiar scent that spreads across land. This fragrance not only has an effect on humans but on other creatures as well.

Rain and its impact have been a recurring subject in poetry, mystical texts and the Indo-Persian miniature painting. After Rain, the title of recently concluded Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024 (February 20– May 24), for Ute Meta Bauer, the artistic director of its second edition, “was a metaphor for presenting the Biennale as a nourishing experience filled with life. The reference also acknowledges the importance of water for all living beings and the significance of water for a city like Riyadh, situated in a desert.”

This can be interpreted in a broader context. For decades, the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was a traditional society of orthodox practices and strict beliefs. Recent years have witnessed a tremendous transformation in terms of global politics, social reformation and support for art and culture: a shift evident in the Diriyah Biennale, with its scale, participants, panel discussions and audiences’ involvement (222,341 visitors). In a sense, the title of the biennale alludes to the new beginning of an ancient kingdom.

Its location, Diriyah district, “was the original home of the Saudi royal family, and served as the capital of the Emirate of Diriyah under the first Saudi dynasty from 1727 to 1818.” So the work installed at “six repurposed exhibition halls (former industrial spaces)” of the Biennale was surrounded by historic mud structures; and like the site, was a blend of old and new, a combination of contemporary and modern.

What loosely bound the work of more than 100 artists from almost 40 countries –was the response to the environment, its modifications, threats and problems. Today, we are super conscious about the ecological crisis but scarcely relate its roots to geopolitics, the colonial past and the multinational economy, that disturbed the harmony of natural resources and distorted the indigenous identities. This was indicated by the Bangladeshi artist Dhali Al Mamoon in his kinetic sculptures derived from the traditional puppets, but presenting sepoys (Indian soldiers recruited by the East India Company) holding their weapons and preys. These puppets move and rotate unexpectedly though in actuality they are controlled by some hidden power.

The history of colonialism was also invoked by the Afro-Cuban artist, Maria Magdalena Campos-pons, who traced the slave trail from the coast of Africa to Caribbean Islands in a magnificent diptych. Apart from the human transaction there was spice trade between the regions of Far East, South Asia, Middle East and East Africa. Mariah Lookman, exploring her forefathers’ business, collected herbs, spices, nuts and seeds in glass jars, which became the tangible testimony of how “rivers meet the sea” and how regions of different tongues start speaking to one another. In her project at another site, Shamalat, Lookman planted mint, basil and roseberries on the two sides of a small water channel in a public space. The diction of natural or man-made materials was weaved into a functional narrative by El Anatsui in his Detsi, which the celebrated artist from Ghana took 13 years to produce, by flattening, cutting and twisting the discarded bottlecaps and stitching them together into a grand visual chronology.

The colonial past still haunts, especially as it left an immense waste in its wake. Before the European conquests, the world population survived for centuries in peace with nature. Ancient myths and stories respected, responded to and communicated with animals, birds, plants and elements of nature. Everything created by the divine was sacred, hence worthy of care. But the age of Industrialisation disturbed this order, causing water crisis, pollution and carbon footprint. A number of artists in their works addressed the situation, like Lucy+Jorge Orta’s installation, Orta Water–Purification Factory: made of scrap metals and recycled materials, that pumped and distilled water and converted local urban vehicles into portable drinking water fountains. The Kuwaiti born artist Alia Farid, enlarged five different vessels traditionally used to store water, reminding one of the present-day water tanks on rooftops and in newly built localities.

Luminous, grand and monumental, these sculptures highlighted the global issue of drying up water reservoirs, resulting in the extinction of botanical and zoological habitats. Martha Atienza, in her Equation of State, drew attention to the submerging of Bantayan Island’s coast line due to rising sea level. In her installation the mangrove trees in small baskets were suspended over a large rectangular water basin, conveying the disappearance of vegetation essential to maintain the environmental equilibrium.

A significant feature of the Biennale was the research projects, displayed on tables, highlighting the artists’ investigations in matters that concern our collective future and document our shared past. For instance, Susanne Kriemann’s Datadust Skin of Sand, gleaned textures of desert which, contrary to general assumptions, is not empty. Kriemann documented contemporary discarded objects, like a long-sleeved shirt, through her sensitive silk-screen prints using date syrup, later coated with sand, which added a presence beyond time. Like desert, mountains are also eternal and not empty. Hamra Abbas, in her spectacular mosaic Mountain 5, depicted the view of Karakorum 2, with a composition of lapis lazuli and granite. The variation of blues suggested an abstract reading of the image and hinted at the distribution of snow on the world’s second highest peak. Intriguingly Abbas created this mountain with pieces of stones extracted from Badakhshan Valley.

Yet far from cities infected with carbon footprint, emission of lethal gases and consumption of natural resources, resulting in unimaginable disasters, fires, floods, famines, pandemics, etc Saudi artist Reem Al Nasser had gathered charred juniper branches, after the blaze of 2021 which destroyed trees in Al Jarrah Park. The burnt wood was stacked in two metal structures daubed in blue (linking to the predominant window colour in the region). In a way, Al Nasser’s installation rekindled Kiefer’s work, Land of Two Rivers (1985-89), composed of two shelves filled with pages of burnt books forged in lead.

Trees in their multiple reincarnations were present at the exhibition, particularly its 320-page catalogue. (Ute Meta Bauer, the Biennale’s artistic director, did not disapprove of paper, because in her opinion virtual is not the ultimate solution as it consumes energy and leaves a huge amount of data waste). Books had a pivotal role in Tuban, an installation by Indonesian artist Ade Darmawan. Inspired by his compatriot, Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s book Arus Balik (published in 1995), Darmawan’s constructed a laboratory that distilled spices and leaves mentioned in Toer’s text. “The drops from the laboratory tubes fall onto open books about Suharto and his corrupt policies on land and resources.” During Gen Suharto’s reign, Toer “was imprisoned from 1969 to 1978.” He wrote the novel in solitary confinement.

Darmawan reaffirmed that the ecological crisis is not about nature, but the mankind, its greed, colonial forces and exploitation on a global scale. Tiffany Chung, employing a clinical tone weaved two “embroidered maps, based on diagrams projecting carbon dioxide emissions from 2019 to 2050 and global displacement caused by climate, conflict and migration.” In her essay Chung said that “climate and economic crises coupled with political and armed conflicts have produced and continue to produce refugees.”

To some extent all creative individuals are refugees, perpetually residing in imaginary and desired homelands, often polluted by political turmoil, economic lust and imperialist designs. Most countries of the Global South suffer from this aging disease, from Mexico to Chile and from Indonesia to Burkina-Faso. The Biennale was a narrative connecting climate with other, more critical issues.

Mexican author Carlos Fuentes’s novel, Where the Air is Clear is situated in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. The literal meaning of this Latin American city’s name is good air. Given the approaching ecological disasters, one wonders how long the name can be retained, or justified.

(To be continued)

The writer is an art critic, curator and a professor at the School of Visual Arts and Design at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore