15 May 2025

Residency Emerging New Media Artists Programme

Diriyah Art Futures –  Riyadh, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Diriyah Art Futures

Opportunity Description

International Deadline: June 16, 2025 – Diriyah Art Futures (DAF), the MENA region’s first New Media Arts hub, has announced a call for applications for the second cycle of its Emerging New Media Artists programme, set to launch in October 2025.

The Emerging New Media Artists Programme is a supported one-year programme of theoretical engagement, creative production and technical training for emerging artists working in New Media and Digital Art. Developed in collaboration with Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains, the programme offers participants access to cutting-edge technology, production facilities, and mentorship from leading international artists and scholars.

ELIGIBILITY
The programme is designed for artists worldwide who are 35 years or younger, at graduate or postgraduate completion stage, with experience in New Media and Digital Art.

Over the course of the year, participants will explore themes such as AI, virtual and augmented reality, sound, cinema and digital archives, culminating in a final curated exhibition at DAF.

THEME
The first three months of the academic year span a series of thematic and conceptual explorations led by artists and theorists through seminars, lectures, screenings, and workshops.

Topics include:

  • Nature, human, non-human
  • Nature, Climate, Environment and Societal Transformation
  • The body and technological transformations of living beings
  • Migration, post-colonialism and a critique of capitalism
  • Mapping Memory, the relationships between digital practices and the archive
  • Internet and the post-internet era
  • Global Modern and Contemporary Art and Arabic Regionalism

In the following six months, you will receive personalised mentorship from prominent artists, while you produce your artwork using the technologies offered by the Diriyah Art Futures labs. You will have access to cutting-edge technologies such as advanced audio-visual techniques, immersive reality, coding, sensing, machine learning and spatial audio-visual environments. The artwork you produce will be exhibited with Diriyah at Futures as a final curated and juried outcome of the one-year programme

Artists are invited to explore a range of contemporary fields in New Media Arts, including:

  • Reality and Artificial Reality
  • Sound and Cinema Creation
  • Humans and Artificial Intelligence

PROSPECTUS – No Entry Fee
Download Prospectus(.pdf)

About:
Diriyah Art Futures is an arts, research and educational center driven by a belief in the power of interdisciplinary creative practice at the intersection of art, science, and technology.

Initiated by the Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia, in partnership with Diriyah Gate Development Company (DGCL), the center is a home for New Media Arts and a location for collaboration, speculation and production by creative communities from across the globe for research, documentation, and new work.

Diriyah Art Futures
3029 King Faisal Rd
Al Bujairi, 7719, Riyadh 13712
Saudi Arabia

Opportunity Categories: + Curatorial and + Open to Multi-Media. Opportunity Types: Residency. Opportunity Tags: $0 Entry/Application Fee, Deadlines 05 May thru June, and Open to Artists Worldwide. Benefits: *No Participation Fee, Education, Exhibition - Group, Exhibition - Solo, In-Kind Benefit, Residency, Stipend, and Studio Access.

Opportunity expires in 33 days.

Apply for this Opportunity