Generating waves of creativity, investment and cultural exchange for GREAT FUTURES

The GREAT Britain & Northern Ireland Campaign (GREAT) was established over a decade ago to enhance the UK’s international reputation and drive economic growth across the nation by encouraging an international audience to visit, study, invest, live and work in the UK. It showcases on a world stage the best of British ideas, business and talent, sharing the stories of the people and places that make our country unique. “We are a nation of creative thinkers, daring dreamers and curious scientists,” the campaign declares. It was established to tell a contemporary story of Britain, one which celebrates the creative industries, technology and other key sectors. The GREAT FUTURES Saudi event took place on May 14-15, 2024 in Riyadh and was the start of a year-long programme in the region. The two-day event drew the largest UK outward-bound trade mission for a decade, including senior representatives from the fields of education, health, insurance, architecture, culture, energy, sport, tourism and commerce.

At a time of political and cultural change in both countries, I was curious about how the tone and energy of the summit would play out. Culture is about building bridges and for me, this was an opportunity to learn, connect and share. Many of us live and work amidst shifting economic, political and social contexts. Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lucy Frazer, led the charge for Design and Creative Industries. From the cultural sector alone, the GREAT FUTURES event saw a spectrum of creatives and cultural leaders: Alex Beard, CEO, The Royal Opera House; Ben Evans, Director, London Design Festival; Francesca Hegyi, CEO, Edinburgh Festival International and the architect Thomas Heatherwick among them.

I chaired a number of conversations throughout the summit, including one on the Future of Museums and the Arts with the inimitable Sir Ian Blatchford, Director of the Science Museum, and Tim Marlow, Director of the Design Museum. The UK has a unique cultural and creative ecosystem with museums at the very centre of it, forging new avenues for learning, research, experience, creativity and knowledge across culture and business. London’s 167-year-old Science Museum has announced an agreement with the Ministry of Culture for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to increase engagement in science and culture through the creation of a Museums Hub in Riyadh. The new hub will enable the Science Museum Group to work closely with museum professionals, researchers and educators in Saudi Arabia to create a centre of excellence for science and culture and support the wider museum sector. The Design Museum is a great example of an institution which has evolved through multiple iterations as a showcase for design in many different definitions. As a trustee of the museum and someone who is proudly engaged across the cultural and creative sector in the UK, I was happy to see the openness on both sides to connect on issues of intellectual capital and sharing.

Bringing science, technology and culture together is not just unique to these two institutions and culture is not just going to be about future thinking. But the interconnected ecosystem in the UK, which relies upon academia and innovation as much as the arts is difficult to replicate and worth learning from.

Both Saudi Arabia and the UK are grappling with changing demographics and the conversation around inclusion and diversity in cultural institutions—but from very different baselines and with different benchmarks of success. In Britain the challenges of inclusivity in museums are well-documented. Opening up access and maintaining sustained relationships with diverse communities has been challenging and recovering from the knock-on effects of Brexit and Covid-19 has taken time. This is not necessarily unique to the UK; getting younger audiences through the door has been difficult at the more traditional arts institutions. Major national institutions invest time and resources in learning and development programmes to ensure young people and those from diverse communities can engage with cultural institutions. How to expand access and allow broader audiences to come to contemporary art galleries, natural history museums and archival institutions remains a challenge, but for this reflection, we considered: what is the purpose of a museum today?

In Saudi Arabia, there is the opportunity to learn early from these conversations and self-acknowledged challenges. With 30 new museums commissioned since 2020, with themes laid out, regions and locations selected and architectural plans and mapping underway, the issue is not one of resource constraints in the way it has been for British institutions in recent years. Led by the young and dynamic Head of the Saudi Museums Commission, Ibrahim Alsanousi, who joined our conversation, we talked about possibilities and plans for institutions in the space of arts, heritage, craft, technology and science across the country’s landscape and for all of its 40 million population, with a range of historical, ethnic and cultural diversities.

The opportunity in Saudi Arabia will certainly be in building a sustainable, embedded ecosystem which engages audiences, communities, ideas and young people. And also in giving time for evolution and unexpected outcomes. In culture, the process of research, ideas, curation and evolution is often as important as the final exhibition or publication. What is the world in which these museums exist? How do they create purpose for this new moment in cultural history? Culture is never static and Saudi Arabia has the chance to build in new ways.

There is much the UK can bring to this in terms of learning and sharing with many other countries on a path to building and levelling up their cultural sectors and public spaces. The Design Museum in London is the first independent UK museum to be accredited as a research organisation by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The launch of Future Observatory, the Design Museum’s national research programme for the green transition, redefines what a museum can be: a place not solely focused on the past or the present but one that can help shape the future.  

This is an unusual step forward and also represents the depth and maturity of the cultural sector in the UK. The conference venue showcased some amazing (and unexpected) British talent. Rather than big name brands, younger artists and creatives and under-the-radar cultural institutions were showcased. And to match this, what was very real and unmistakable was the energy of the younger generation in Saudi. Hopeful and ambitious, it is a digital future, led by women coming into their own in the workforce and in the realm of policy. It is also one where demographics—a young population with disposable income, a curiosity about the rest of the world and a pride in their own cultures—will play a role in entertainment, experience and luxury.

This summer, the Saudi artist Ahmed Mater will also be featured in a major retrospective at Christie’s in London, in a major moment for the contemporary art world. Dina Amin, the CEO of Saudi Arabia’s young but already powerful Visual Arts Commission, talked about her recent successes in bringing Manal AlDowayan, one of the country’s top women artists, to the Venice Biennale as part of the Saudi Pavilion. “We feel like it is a new beginning. We are learning our own history again. And we are learning to fall in love with our country again,” she shared.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position of STIR or its Editors.)