Mountains, Deserts, Seas

Spectacular architecture in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert. The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, or Ithra for short, stands where the kingdom’s prosperity began. Here, at the gates of Dharan, Saudi Arabia’s first source of crude oil was discovered. Today education is the main focus at Ithra, which TIME magazine included on its list of the “World’s 100 Greatest Places of 2018”.

Today, where deep drilling for mineral resources once took place, the people of Saudi Arabia, especially its young population, are to learn about the fauna and flora of their homeland. To this end, iart has implemented an interactive exhibition in partnership with Atelier Brückner. The aim was to literally immerse the visitors in the topic, to stimulate them, and to involve them in what happens around them.

The exhibition zones offer visitors numerous opportunities for playful interaction: a globe that depicts continental shifts; schools of fish, projected on the wall, that react to hand movements; a room-filling simulation where the country’s resources can be used and the peninsula’s future can be explored. Whatever the visitors do, their actions leave behind traces in the exhibition.