DUBAI: Saudi Arabia has linked up with international art collective teamLab to establish a new digital art museum in the Kingdom.
As part of the country’s Vision 2030 reform plan to diversify the economy through cultural and artistic enterprise, the collaboration will see an interdisciplinary group of specialists develop artworks for display at the museum, to be called teamLab Borderless Jeddah, by 2023.
Founded in 2001 in Japan by Toshiyuki Inoko, the interactive art collective has been dedicated to going beyond “borders” in art and the world at large.
Its permanent exhibition titled “teamLab Borderless” was established in Odaiba, Tokyo in June 2018, and was followed by a similar display in Huangpu District, Shanghai in November 2019.
Inoko believes that the world is filled with borders none of which were originally there. He said that instead of thinking of the world and the relationship between Earth and the universe as places filled with separations, the time had come to combine science and art to move forward into a borderless world. Physical borders were those created by humans, he added.
The teamLab group of artists, creatives, architects, programmers, CG animators, and more, will set up teamLab Borderless Jeddah along the same creative lines as the museums in Tokyo and Shanghai, incorporating the latest technology to form Inoko’s vision of one borderless world.
The Jeddah center will also house a section dedicated to children, allowing kids to explore how the joint realms of science and art learning can help inspire the next generation of Saudi creatives.
The Saudi Ministry of Culture, which is supported by the Vision 2030 strategic framework and Quality of Life Program, intends the museum to become an inspiration for the Kingdom’s growing art scene.
The particular focus on the convergence of art and technology supports the Kingdom’s vision of cultural and economic diversification.
The partnership will also entail collaborations with leading international artists as well as a number of events, exhibitions, and educational experiences at the museum. There are also future plans to transport the museum and its activities to Riyadh.
