DHAHRAN: Tanween, Ithra’s flagship annual creativity season, returned earlier this month with a program chock-full of exploration and innovation, with participants partaking in talks, exhibitions, networking sessions, master classes, and interactive spaces.
The season started on Oct. 27 and runs over three weekends until Nov. 12. The first week was centered on the theme of Business of Creativity, which aimed to explore innovative collaborations that could create opportunities, including in the AI and robotics industry.
What was perhaps the talk of the town was the “robotic” experience. Canadian duo Bill Vorn and Louie-Philippe Demers presented “Inferno,” where participants were invited to become one with the robots. For the first time in the Kingdom, they allowed audience members to either watch the show and take selfies — or become the show.
Every participant signed a waiver before slipping their gloved hands into the exoskeleton in the large, darkened room with music blasting. The result was an unlikely dance troupe where none of the humans had any idea what the next robotic moves would be.
Strapped with 13 kilograms of weight, visitors were encouraged to move their legs to the rhythm and surrender to the moment. Both arms were controlled by two men who served as conductors, DJs and “puppet masters.”
“This was a project that we’ve been working on for about seven years and that we toured all around the world in different countries, and this is our first time in Saudi Arabia, here in Dammam. It is going to be a great opportunity for us here at Ithra to premiere this project and to show it to the Saudi people,” Vorn told Arab News.
His colleague, Demers, also from Montreal, Canada, likened the experience — and the scene — to one from a movie.
HIGHLIGHT
Since its inception in 2018, Tanween has connected creatives and innovators with global experts, allowing them to share ideas and redefine what creativity means in a changing world. The event has hosted more than 75,000 participants from the Kingdom and abroad.
“These are very similar to what you would see in, let’s say, Hollywood movies or army-style. So these things you wear, the exoskeletons on the outside of your body, and they make your arms move, so they kind of incite you to dance along and move along and perform in front of the audience on a bunch of soundtracks — techno-industrial … all kinds of style of music,” Demers added.
Miznah Al-Zamil, head of innovation and creativity at Ithra, told Arab News during a tour that Tanween “explores the creative process in all its means and forms. This year, our fifth edition, we explore collaboration. Collaboration of cultures, with nature, biotechnology for society. Our program includes master classes, talks, workshops, demonstrations and so much more.”
Al-Zamil also introduced the Tanween hub that allow “creatives and innovators to discuss, share their ideas together.” The space included the Challenges Exhibition, which showcased the results of a year-long program where a select group of creatives were asked to solve an issue or problem with a marketable solution.
Among the solutions shown was how a group of graphic designers developed an updated and upgraded identity for a north Alkhobar neighborhood; and a pavilion and fashion products created by designers using sustainable materials.
Maggie Jonk, an artist currently residing in Spain, told Arab News she was excited at seeing many Saudis interacting. “I’m one of the participating artists at Tanween this year, and I’m working on a Weave Not Waste Wall. It’s a community weaving wall where everybody has a chance to weave discarded textiles and plastics into the wall so we repurpose what we would normally waste,” she said.
The wall will remain in place until the last weekend of Tanween, so interested visitors have further opportunity to weave ribbons and strings into the collaborative tapestry.
Since its inception in 2018, Tanween has connected creatives and innovators with global experts, allowing them to share ideas and redefine what creativity means in a changing world. The event has hosted more than 75,000 participants from the Kingdom and abroad, and welcomed almost 200,000 visitors.
The first four Tanween themes were Disruption, Play, The New Next, and Tools, with this year’s being Collaborate. According to the organizers, the event “explores an aspect of the creative process and taps into how cultural and creative industries continue to innovate and generate — highlighting the value of collaboration.”
