Saudi artist Ramy Alqthami’s installation “Al-Bitra” is currently featured at the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale in Riyadh, highlighting the complexities of borders, memory, and identity. The work incorporates a concrete land marker that Alqthami first spray-painted at age nine, symbolizing themes of possession, fragmentation, and the fluidity of territorial boundaries.

Born in Jeddah, Alqthami draws on his family’s tribal heritage from Taif, where land was historically distributed by lottery to promote equality. In his youth, he marked one such lottery-assigned parcel by spray-painting the number “315” on a concrete post, intending to preserve the identifier from natural erosion. Years later, he removed and retained the post, transforming it into a central element of his installation.

Alqthami’s work reflects his view that borders are artificial constructs created to establish security and peace. “Borders are imaginary lines drawn by man in pursuit of security and peace. Yet what is truly unsettling is for a human to be left without refuge — suspended between illusions,” he said. His installation explores how physical markers, collective memory, and social meaning intersect, challenging viewers to consider the often intangible nature of belonging and identity.

The piece, which pairs the original post with photographs documenting its removal and relocation, first appeared publicly in 2012 in a show curated by Ashraf Fayadh. It gained wider exposure in 2013 during Edge of Arabia’s “Rhizoma” exhibition at the Venice Biennale. Its inclusion in the current Diriyah Biennale—now in its third edition—underscores ongoing regional and global conversations about geography, history, and cultural connections.

This year’s biennale centers on the theme “In Interludes and Transitions,” focusing on the interweaving of geographies and cultures across the Arab world and beyond. Alqthami links his work to these concepts through the lens of Bedouin heritage, noting the nomadic traditions that coexist with strong attachments to homeland. “Bedouins are essentially nomads, but they also belong to a geographical location they call ‘home,’” he explained, adding that historical movements within the Arabian Peninsula entailed the crossing of various territories.

For Alqthami, contemporary art serves as a means to deepen the impact and authenticity of such reflections. “The important thing [in contemporary art] is how you increase your effectiveness and influence — participating and having a genuine concern that’s not contrived or manufactured,” he said. His installation thus operates not only as a personal narrative but also as a broader meditation on the relationships humans cultivate with land, identity, and the symbolic weight carried by borders.