Founded 2003 - Abha, Saudi Arabia | Launched 2008 - London, UK
London underground poster advertising the first Edge of Arabia exhibition 2008.
Ahmed Mater Co-Founded Edge of Arabia with British artist, Stephen Stapleton in 2003. Established to encourage grassroots cultural dialogue between Saudi Arabia and the Western world, and to raise the status of contemporary art in the Kingdom, Edge of Arabia went on to produce over 50 exhibitions around the world, publish and distribute over 100,000 books and catalogues and reach a wider audience of tens of millions of people through a sustained artist-led media campaign.
“A recent edition of National Geographic had a feature on the Kingdom. On its cover was a sword-wielding Saudi prince, inside were photos of veiled women in malls, camel markets and urban youth in fast cars. The article was called “Kingdom on Edge.” I asked Stephen what the word “edge” meant in this context. We began to talk about ways of turning it around and using it in a positive rather than a pejorative sense. Being in Abha, we were on the edge of the country. Contemporary art was at the periphery, or edge, of what you would expect to read about from Saudi Arabia, and so Edge of Arabia seemed to encapsulate what we wanted to do by raising the profile of Saudi contemporary art. Stephen and I committed there and then to build a project under that title."
Ahmed Mater
Ahmed Mater and Stephen Stapleton founded Edge of Arabia at the Al Muftaha Arts Village in 2003.
Read more at the Edge of Arabia website.