Ahaad Alamoudi presents ‘The Social Health Club’ in Basel 

This month, Saudi artist Ahaad Alamoudi is turning up the heat at Basel Social Club — which runs until June 21 in the Swiss city — with her latest installation, “The Social Health Club.” (Supplied) 
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Updated 19 June 2025
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Ahaad Alamoudi presents ‘The Social Health Club’ in Basel 

  • The Saudi artist discusses her new work for the Swiss city’s Social Club art fair 

RIYADH: This month, Saudi artist Ahaad Alamoudi is turning up the heat at Basel Social Club — which runs until June 21 in the Swiss city — with her latest installation, “The Social Health Club.” 

Freshly conceived, but rooted in the artist’s past works, the yellow-drenched installation offers a layered, sensory experience — and sharp cultural commentary — as well as a first for the artist: a live-performance element. 

Jeddah-based Alamoudi is known for creating immersive multimedia installations drawing from and exploring the complex dynamics of her evolving homeland. “The Social Health Club” is built around pieces found in Jeddah’s Haraj market in 2018 — a range of exercise equipment including a rowing machine.  

“These are pieces I collected from thrifting. I like the fact that no instructions came with the machines — I don’t have their name or the source of where they came from or who made them. But they’ve become part of the urban landscape that I’ve been in. And I was trying to create fun within the space,” Alamoudi told Arab News. 




“The Social Health Club” is built around pieces found in Jeddah’s Haraj market in 2018 — a range of exercise equipment including a rowing machine. (Supplied)

In “The Social Health Club,” the equipment, painted predominantly in vibrantly-saturated monochrome yellow, stands untouched, serving as symbols of a culture obsessed with self-optimization. At the core of the installation is a cameo from a yellow-painted iron previously featured in her 2020 video work “Makwah Man.” (Makwah means iron in Arabic.) 

“A lot of my pieces stem from a narrative I create within a video. In ‘Makwah Man,’ this man wearing a yellow thobe is ironing a long piece of yellow fabric in the middle of the desert. And as he’s ironing, he tells us how to live our lives. But in the process of him telling us how to live our lives, he also starts questioning his own in the process — understanding the role of power, understanding the pressure of change, adaptation,” Alamoudi explained. 

“The yellow exists within the video piece, but he’s also wearing yellow thobe in the video piece. And (in this iteration at Art Basel) there’s also a rack of yellow thobes twirling in the exhibition. For me, the yellow thobe is like a unifying symbol. I’m trying to say that we’re all experiencing this in different ways. So in the performance (for “The Social Health Club”) a man (a local body builder) in a yellow thobe will be performing on these machines. He has no rule book. He doesn’t know anything; he doesn’t know how to ‘properly’ use the equipment. He’s going to go into the space and do things with the machines. 

“The performance will be recorded. But I think it’s more like an activation,” she continued. “It’s not the piece itself. The piece itself exists as the machines.” 




A still from Alamoudi's 2020 video work 'Makwah Man,' which is also part of 'The Social Health Club.' (Supplied)

“The Social Health Club” was shaped through close collaboration with curator Amal Khalaf, who combed Jeddah’s market with Alamoudi in search of “machines that were a little bit abnormal, like not your typical machines that people would directly know what it is in the gym,” Alamoudi said.  

“She’s quite incredible,” she continued. “And we really built the space together. Essentially, the main thing that I created was the video; everything else was built off of that. She really helped. She really looked at social change and how we navigate that. Our collaboration was perfect.” 

Yellow dominates every inch of the piece—deliberately and intensely. 

“I obsess over symbols within certain works I create. And with that also comes a color,” Alamoudi said. “I wanted to showcase something that was luxurious, colorful, almost like gold, but it’s not gold. It’s quite stark in its appearance.” 

Yellow is both invitation and warning. “I think that yellow is also quite deceptive. I like it as a color to get people excited to come closer and see what’s happening, but at the same time question what it is — it’s so aggressive that it becomes a bit uncomfortable.” 

The viewer’s interaction is critical to the piece’s meaning. 

“I think the machines represent something and they carry something, but they really are activated by the people — what people are doing with them,” Alamoudi said. “And that’s why I’m encouraging a lot of viewers to engage with and use the pieces, or try to use them without any instruction. A lot of people entering into the space (might) fear even touching or engaging with them. Having the performer there activating the structures is going to add another layer to the piece itself.” 

She hopes visitors feel free to explore, unburdened by expectations. 

“People are meant to use it any way that they want to use it. They can sit on it, stand on it, touch it — they can leave it alone,” she concluded with a laugh. 


Qatar’s international reserves rise 3.5% in June, topping $70bn


Updated 3 min 48 sec ago
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Qatar’s international reserves rise 3.5% in June, topping $70bn


  • Official reserve assets rose to 199.65 billion riyals
  • Gold holdings rose to 44.5 billion riyals

RIYADH: Qatar’s international reserves and foreign currency liquidity climbed 3.51 percent year on year in June to reach 258.88 billion Qatari riyals ($70.9 billion), according to data released by the Qatar Central Bank.

The reserves also edged up 0.29 percent from May, adding 744 million riyals during the month. The increase reflects the resilience of Qatar’s monetary framework amid global economic uncertainty.

Official reserve assets — which make up the core of the central bank’s holdings — rose to 199.65 billion riyals in June, marking a 4.46 percent annual increase and a 0.47 percent rise from the previous month.

The uptick was driven by higher gold reserves, stronger balances with foreign banks, and an improved reserve position with the International Monetary Fund.

Gold holdings rose to 44.5 billion riyals in June, slightly up from 44.3 billion in May. Special Drawing Rights deposits inched up to 5.26 billion riyals, while Qatar’s IMF reserve position grew by 81 million to 5.25 billion riyals.

Foreign bank balances jumped by 1.33 billion riyals to 17.75 billion, although the central bank’s holdings of foreign bonds and treasury bills dipped to 132.14 billion riyals, down 763 million from the month before.

In the wider Gulf region, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait reported relatively stable reserve positions.

The Saudi Central Bank posted official reserves of SR1.716 trillion ($457.7 billion) in June, slightly down from SR1.721 trillion in May but up from SR1.647 trillion in April. The total includes SR1.620 trillion in foreign currency reserves and SR81.33 billion in SDRs. The IMF reserve position stood at SR13.28 billion, while gold holdings remained unchanged at SR1.62 billion.

Kuwait’s reserves totaled 14.106 billion dinars ($46 billion) in May, compared to 14.633 billion dinars in April, according to the Central Bank of Kuwait. Foreign currency and deposits abroad accounted for 12.49 billion dinars, with SDR holdings at 1.33 billion. Gold reserves remained steady at 31.7 million dinars.

Qatar’s total international reserves comprise official reserve assets — including foreign bonds, deposits, gold, SDRs, and IMF balances — as well as other liquid foreign currency holdings.


Israel far-right minister demands end to Gaza ceasefire talks

Updated 17 min 19 sec ago
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Israel far-right minister demands end to Gaza ceasefire talks

  • Minister calls for ‘total siege, military crushing, encouraging emigration (of Palestinians outside of Gaza), and (Israeli) settlement’ in the Gaza Strip
  • Israel has been waging war on Hamas in Gaza for over 21 months, its troops gradually occupying more and more of the Palestinian territory

JERUSALEM: Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call back a delegation conducting indirect talks with Hamas in Qatar for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“I call on the Prime Minister to immediately recall the delegation that went to negotiate with the Hamas murderers in Doha,” Ben Gvir said in a post on X on the third day of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement.

Instead, the minister who lives in a West Bank settlement called for “total siege, military crushing, encouraging emigration (of Palestinians outside of Gaza), and (Israeli) settlement” in the Gaza Strip.

He called these measures “the keys to total victory, not a reckless deal that would release thousands of terrorists and withdraw the (Israeli army) from areas captured with the blood of our soldiers.”

A Palestinian official close to the talks said on Tuesday that the talks were ongoing, with a focus on “the mechanisms for implementation, particularly the clauses related to withdrawal and humanitarian aid.”

Netanyahu traveled to Washington for his third visit since Trump’s return to power, where the US president on Monday voiced confidence that a deal could be reached.

The Israeli leader ruled out a full Palestinian state, insisting Israel would “always” keep security control over the Gaza Strip.

Israel has been waging war on Hamas in Gaza for over 21 months, its troops gradually occupying more and more of the Palestinian territory.

According to the UN, 82 percent of Gaza is now under Israeli military control or displacement orders.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

The attack resulted in 1,219 deaths on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.

Of the 251 people abducted that day, 49 are still hostages in Gaza, including 27 declared dead by the Israeli army.

At least 57,523 Gazans, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory campaign, according to data from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

The figures are deemed reliable by the UN.


Indian villagers beat five to death for ‘witchcraft’

Updated 15 min 54 sec ago
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Indian villagers beat five to death for ‘witchcraft’

  • Despite campaigns against superstition, belief in witchcraft remains widespread in rural areas across India, especially in isolated tribal communities
  • Women have often been branded witches and targeted

NEW DELHI: Indian villagers beat a family of five to death and dumped their corpses in a lake accusing them of “practicing witchcraft” after the death of a boy, police said Tuesday.
Three people have been arrested and have confessed to the crime, police in the northern state of Bihar said in a statement.
Three women — including a 75-year-old — were among those murdered.
The main accused believed that his son’s recent death was caused by one of those killed, and blamed “him and his family of practicing witchcraft,” the statement said.
“After beating the victims to death, the perpetrators loaded the bodies onto a tractor and dumped them in a pond,” police said.
The murderers and victims all belonged to India’s Oraon tribe in Bihar, India’s poorest state and a mainly Hindu region of at least 130 million people.
Despite campaigns against superstition, belief in witchcraft remains widespread in rural areas across India, especially in isolated tribal communities.
Some states, including Bihar, have introduced laws to try to curb crimes against people accused of witchcraft and superstition.
Women have often been branded witches and targeted, but the killing of the family of five stands out as a particularly heinous recent example.
More than 1,500 people — the overwhelming majority of them women — were killed in India on suspicion of witchcraft between 2010 and 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
Some believe in the occult, but attackers also sometimes have other motives including usurping their rights over land and property.


Riyadh Fashion Week issues final call for designer applications ahead of 3rd edition

Updated 26 min 37 sec ago
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Riyadh Fashion Week issues final call for designer applications ahead of 3rd edition

DUBAI: Riyadh Fashion Week (RFW) is gearing up for its third edition, with organizers issuing a final call for designer applications. Fashion houses from across Saudi Arabia and around the world have until July 15 to submit their proposals for inclusion in the official calendar.

One of the Middle East’s most anticipated fashion events, RFW offers a platform for both emerging and established designers to showcase their collections to international buyers and industry leaders. 

The official calendar will feature a broad spectrum of brand activations beyond traditional runway shows. Designers can also take part in curated presentations, showroom exhibitions, trunk shows, retail pop-ups, creative takeovers, private dinners and immersive experiences. 

Saudi Arabia-based and international fashion brands across ready-to-wear, couture, menswear, and streetwear categories are eligible. 
“This is more than a runway,” said Burak Cakmak, CEO of the Saudi Fashion Commission. “It is a statement of creative identity, innovation, and ambition. Riyadh Fashion Week provides a high-impact opportunity for designers to tell their story on a global stage.”


Germany must honor visa obligations to Afghan refugees, rules court

Updated 27 min 59 sec ago
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Germany must honor visa obligations to Afghan refugees, rules court

  • Since May 2021, Germany has admitted about 36,500 vulnerable Afghans including former local staff by various pathways
  • Some 2,400 Afghans approved for admission are waiting in Pakistan to travel to Germany without a clear idea of when

BERLIN: A German court ruled on Tuesday that the government is obliged to issue visas to Afghan nationals and their family members who were accepted into a humanitarian admissions program that the new center-right coalition intends to shut down.

After the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 by Western allies, Germany established several programs to resettle local staff as well as particularly vulnerable Afghans.

Since May 2021, Germany has admitted about 36,500 vulnerable Afghans including former local staff by various pathways.

Some 2,400 Afghans approved for admission are waiting in Pakistan to travel to Germany without a clear idea of when, as the program has been suspended pending a government review, the foreign ministry in Berlin said this month.

The court decision, in response to an urgent appeal by an Afghan woman and her family, ruled that the government was legally bound to honor its “irrevocable” commitment to them.

“The applicants assert that they are entitled to a visa and can no longer remain in Pakistan. They face deportation to Afghanistan, where they fear for their lives,” it said.

However, the government is within its rights to end the program for Afghans and refrain from issuing any new admission commitments going forward, according to the court in Berlin.

NGOs have said that an additional 17,000 Afghans are in the early stages of selection and application under the now-dormant scheme.

The court’s decision can be appealed.

The foreign ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Germany’s new government has pledged a tougher stance on migration after several high-profile attacks and the rise of the far-right made it a pivotal issue in February elections.

As a part of that push, conservative Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has vowed to halt refugee admission programs and to deport people to Afghanistan and Syria.