Hussein Nassereddine Turns Time Into Theatre at the Diriyah Biennale

For the 2026 Diriyah Biennale, Lebanese multidisciplinary artist Hussein Nassereddine explores the history of singing and poetry in the Arab world through three objects spread across a plush stage—from pre-Islamic times and desert poets, to the golden age of Arab pop in the 70s and 80s. The objects are meant to come alive on stage. You are meant to feel as if the performance just ended, or is it about to begin.

The ‘Time Objects’ in ‘Years of the Shining Face’ are a formidable mask, a gate to the unseen, and an abstract cylindrical form. They are the artefacts that accompanied poets and singers and became part of their performance. ”Pre-Islamic poets had the tents, the deserts, the camels,” Nassereddine tells SceneNowSaudi. “And the singers had the studios, the decor, the curtains.” When touched by the music, he continued, they transformed—a transformation captured by the shifting light above.

As the light changes, so too do the objects’ colour, intensity, and shape. Transformation and transmission are key themes of the Diriyah Biennale and of Nassereddine’s research. He is not only mapping the objects’ journey, but that of the many songs and voices and poems that also live on stage, after they’ve spread widely across the Arab world, as their platform for dissemination shifts from vinyls to televisions.

During the Biennale, Nassereddine’s installation will be realised as a stage for musical performances and poetry readings by commissioned artists.