Where We Are Going Today: Cosefan in Diriyah

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Updated 16 October 2025
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Where We Are Going Today: Cosefan in Diriyah

  • Cosefan takes a comedic approach to art that encourages guests to explore their creative sides without pressure

With the booming art scene in Saudi Arabia, a burst of creative inspiration is only to be expected. There are quite a few places to show off your artistic side in Riyadh, but they are usually limited by workshop timings. 

Cosefan, located in the historic Diriyah, is a space where you can personify your artistic self. The spot is lively with Arabic music, lush greenery and decor that creates an atmosphere unlike any other seen in the city. 

The space offers several shorter mentored art experiences, including pottery, painting, tote bag embroidery and other more intensive workshops such as necklace-making, leather notebook-making, Kufi calligraphy, Arabic calligraphy, sculpture and gilding art courses. 

One of the more popular sessions is the wheel pottery course. Eight thousand years ago, the Sumerians, in what is now Iraq, began firing pottery, and 5,000 years ago they invented the potter’s wheel. The session invites you to experience working with clay and disconnect from the outside world by creating a personalised coffee cup using the pottery wheel.

If you would rather have a solo art experience or simply have a fun evening with your friends playing around with art supplies, they have self-guided experiences, including gypsum molding and coloring, glass painting, cup glazing and canvas painting. 

Cosefan takes a comedic approach to art that encourages guests to explore their creative sides without pressure, making art both approachable and enjoyable.

On Mondays, they have blindfolded drawing sessions — wearing yellow is essential; Tuesdays are for drawing the ugliest painting and the winner gets a gift — wearing white is a must. On Wednesday, you’re invited to draw your enemy — whether it is your manager at work or an ex friend — in their ugliest form, and then set fire to the drawing. These are just a few of the examples of the humorous sessions offered each week. 

You can enjoy all this while sipping a cup of tea or munching on a dessert from their coffee shop. 

The spot is a great way to let off some steam at the end of a long day, or to spend the weekend with your friends.


Director Kaouther Ben Hania rejects Berlin honor over Gaza

Updated 20 February 2026
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Director Kaouther Ben Hania rejects Berlin honor over Gaza

DUBAI: Kaouther Ben Hania, the Tunisian filmmaker behind “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” refused to accept an award at a Berlin ceremony this week after an Israeli general was recognized at the same event.

The director was due to receive the Most Valuable Film award at the Cinema for Peace gala, held alongside the Berlinale, but chose to leave the prize behind.

On stage, Ben Hania said the moment carried a sense of responsibility rather than celebration. She used her remarks to demand justice and accountability for Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza in 2024, along with two paramedics who were shot while trying to reach her.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by @artists4ceasefire

“Justice means accountability. Without accountability, there is no peace,” Ben Hania said.

“The Israeli army killed Hind Rajab; killed her family; killed the two paramedics who came to save her, with the complicity of the world’s most powerful governments and institutions,” she said.

“I refuse to let their deaths become a backdrop for a polite speech about peace. Not while the structures that enabled them remain untouched.”

Ben Hania said she would accept the honor “with joy” only when peace is treated as a legal and moral duty, grounded in accountability for genocide.