Nestled within a landscape of brilliantly coloured mountains, deep wadis and desert sands in northwest Saudi Arabia is the fertile oasis of AlUla. This green haven is home to a thriving artistic community and a unique education programme, rooted in local traditions and materials and delivered in partnership by The King's Foundation School of Traditional Arts and the Royal Commission for AlUla at Madrasat Addeera, AlUla's first art and design centre.
The Colours of AlUla: Pigments of the Desert celebrates a beautiful land and its rising generation of artists who, like their ancestors, draw inspiration from the region's natural surroundings. A wonderful resource for any artist wishing to source colours from the earth, this book integrates the practical and the philosophical, exploring pigments, colours, traditional recipes and the cosmological luminosity of handmade paint.
The King's Foundation builds thriving, sustainable communities and transforms lives. Rooted in nature and tradition, it regenerates communities through sustainable placemaking and delivers practical education and training programmes, ensuring people, places and the planet can coexist in harmony. The King's Foundation was founded by His Majesty King Charles III as Prince of Wales in 1990. Cutting across a diverse spectrum of sectors, disciplines and levels, The King's Foundation encompasses areas where The King has been decades ahead of the curve, including education and sustainability, traditional arts and crafts, architecture and urbanism, health and wellbeing, and farming and agriculture.
The King's Foundation School of Traditional Arts is acknowledged as an international institute of excellence which, through education and outreach projects, inspires the practice and preservation of the cultural heritage and artistic traditions of the great civilisations. The Outreach Programme extends the School's ethos and teaching methodology beyond London to communities around the world. Adapted to the local cultural context, the School's teaching methodology enables its students to create contemporary arts through living traditions.
The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) is dedicated to the guardianship and development of AlUla, a gem of northwest Saudi Arabia. Established to protect and revitalise this region, the RCU blends the preservation of its rich cultural and natural heritage with sustainable tourism and community development. The RCU works with local and international experts in archaeology, heritage conservation and preservation, architecture, and master planning to deliver an environmentally and historically sensitive transformation of AlUla. Working hand in hand with the local community, the RCU invests in education and learning for AlUla's next generation and creates training and employment opportunities for its people.
Madrasat Addeera, the first school for girls in AlUla, was converted in 2019 into AlUla's first arts and design centre. The innovative new school offers programmes in traditional arts, guiding artisans and empowering them with the essential tools and techniques necessary to transform the traditional arts scene in AlUla. This initiative aims not only to preserve the rich heritage of traditional arts in AlUla, but also to reimagine them, imbuing these time-honoured practices with a modern relevance.
