Bio — Basmah Felemban

Basmah Felemban (b. 1993, Jeddah) is a Saudi multidisciplinary artist whose work unfolds as interactive systems and spatial propositions - portals and control rooms intoa post-end-of-time world where invasive species are the last ones standing, and existing within an institutional realm is the only means of controlling reality.Her sci-fi writing and research are informed by Islamic art, mythology, and 12th-century Islamic cosmographies.

Working with game engines, 3D modeling, and CNC technologies, Felemban develops rule-based environments in which datasets generate, influence, and regulate one another. Game mechanics are tools for producing these worlds, while player interaction becomes a means of data collection and systemic disruption. She thinks of sculptures as artifacts, paintings as manuscript fragments, and installations and games as portals or control interfaces to an ecology shaped by survival, adaptation, and institutional control.

Felemban’s exhibitions include Consecrated Networks, solo (Athr Gallery, Jeddah, 2024); Vessel of Wreckage, solo (Athr Gallery, Riyadh, 2025); Space Without Measure (Desert X AlUla, 2026); First House (Islamic Arts Biennale, 2023); Worldbuilding (Julia Stoschek Collection, 2022); So It Appears (ICA at VCU, 2023); We Saw an Endless Cycle (Hayy Jameel); and Rhizoma (Edge of Arabia, collateral event, 55th Venice Biennale, 2013), among others. Her work has been presented at Frieze, Art Dubai, Abu Dhabi Art, and Art Istanbul.

Alongside her artistic practice, she has led curatorial initiatives including The Waves Won’t Stop When You Leave (2019), RSH Festival (2023), and the 9th edition of Young Saudi Artists, Biting Between One’s Teeth (2025), and currently serves as Co-Artistic Director at Villa Hegra, AlUla. She received her MA from The King’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts in 2018.