Noor Riyadh, an art light festival, has announced details for its 2025 edition, set to run from 20 November to 6 December 2025, bringing large-scale light artworks across key locations in the Saudi capital.
This year’s theme, “In the Blink of an Eye,” highlights Riyadh’s rapid transformation, blending installations that respond to both the city’s historic core and its expanding modern infrastructure.
The festival will feature 59 artists from 24 nationalities, presenting 60 artworks, including more than 35 new commissions. Works will be spread across six sites: Qasr Al Hokm District, King Abdulaziz Historical Center, stc Metro Station, KAFD Metro Station, Al Faisaliah Tower, and JAX District.
The festival is curated by an international team: Mami Kataoka, Director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo; Li Zhenhua, founder of Beijing Art Lab; and Sara Almutlaq, a Saudi curator known for her work on regional and international projects.
Their approach links the city’s historic core to its rapidly expanding skyline and metro network through large-scale light-based artworks.
Light-based installations will animate Riyadh’s new metro stations and historic districts, reflecting themes of movement, speed, and the city’s evolving identity. Artists from Saudi Arabia and around the world will present kinetic, immersive, and technology-driven works that explore the intersection of innovation, memory, and urban change.
Launched in 2021 under the Riyadh Art initiative, Noor Riyadh has grown into the largest light art festival in the world, attracting millions of visitors each year. Riyadh Art, one of the four mega-projects under Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, aims to expand public art, support the creative economy, and integrate cultural programming into daily urban life.
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