Muhannad Shono

Letters in light, Lines we write (2023)

Muhannad Shono was born in 1977 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he still lives and works. He studied architecture at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dammam, before working in a publishing house and producing one of Saudi Arabia’s earliest graphic novels. His multidisciplinary practice harnesses the power of narrative to explore personal, collective, and historical truths, drawing upon childhood memories and his family’s experience of forced migrations.

He has held solo exhibitions The Silence Is Still Talking, Athr Gallery, Jeddah (2019); Ala: Ritual Machine, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2018); and Children of Yam, Athr Gallery (2016). He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, most recently the Lyon Biennale, Venice Biennale, 21,39 Jeddah Arts, and On Losing Meaning: Nature and State, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Germany (2022); Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale and Bienalsur, Buenos Aires (2021); Desert X, AlUla, Saudi Arabia and 21,39 Jeddah Arts (2020); Zamakan, King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra), Dhahran, Spiritual – Digital, Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Germany, and Bridges to Seoul, Seoul (2019). Shono has received commissions for public installations at Noor Riyadh and Art Basel, Switzerland, and taken part in residencies at Künstlerhaus Bethanien (2017–18), artists-in-labs, Zurich (2017), and Kunstresidenz, Bad Gastein, Austria (2017).