30 April – 12 May 2025 | JAX District, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

“This is not heritage on display. This is heritage in motion.”

Folklore is not a thing of the past. It is a living thread woven into the present. Fragments of Folklore invited visitors into a dialogue between heritage and innovation, where memory is not preserved, but reimagined.

Bringing together four artists — Lulwah Al Homoud, Sheikh Rashid Al Khalifa, Raeda Ashour and Hamra Abbas — the exhibition explored how sacred geometry, calligraphy, materiality and pattern are translated into contemporary artistic languages. Each work carried fragments not of story, but of form: the golden grid, the architectural shadow, the embossed palm, the sacred mountain. Together, they revealed that what we often call heritage is not what is preserved in archives, but what persists through pattern.

Installed in Riyadh’s JAX District, at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s cultural renaissance, the exhibition unfolded like a labyrinth. Its architectural maze, inspired by the Najd region, echoed the layered complexity of folklore itself. Pathways of acacia wood and parchment guided visitors through moments of revelation, intimacy and abstraction, where ancient forms met modern expressions.

In Fragments of Folklore, memory is not preserved in a glass case. It is encoded in geometry, suspended in light, pressed into paper and mapped in stone.

Conceived, organised and curated by THAA (Saudi Arabia), MIR’A Art (Paris / Middle East) and TRIYAD (Brussels), Fragments of Folklore coincided with Saudi Arabia’s Year of Handicrafts 2025, expanding the notion of heritage beyond preservation towards participation, transformation and reinvention.