Conditions for Learning: The Exhibition as a Site of Encounter

Sybel Vazquez serves as the Director of Public Programs at the Diriyah Biennale Foundation, leading on the engagement of the wider community with Foundation’s two historic Biennales. Through a diverse array of cultural programs such as talks, workshops, community initiatives, and symposia for all ages, the Public Programs foster artistic disciplines and responsive cultural discourse within Saudi Arabia’s dynamic cultural landscape.

Born in Tehran in 1980, Kaveh Dabiri is an architect and urban designer based in Amsterdam. Since joining OMA in 2009, he has worked across the firm’s Rotterdam, Doha, and Dubai offices, and currently serves as an Associate, leading architecture and master planning projects across the Middle East and Europe.

Ute Meta Bauer (born 1958 in Stuttgart, Germany) is an educator and curator in the field of contemporary art. She was the Founding Director of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (2013-2024) and is a Professor in the School of Art, Design, and Media at Nanyang Technological University. She currently co-chairs the Master of Arts in Museum Studies and Curatorial Practices and is the Principal Investigator for the three-year research project “Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss.” Bauer was also a co-curator of Documenta11 (2002) on the team of artistic director Okwui Enwezor and served as artistic director for the 3rd Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2004). Together with Paul C. Ha, Director of the MIT List Visual Arts Center, she co-curated the US Pavilion at the 56th Biennale di Venezia (2015), featuring video and performance pioneer Joan Jonas, for which they received honorary mention for best national pavilion. Most recently she curated the Singapore Pavilion at the 59th Biennale di Venezia, presenting Shubigi Rao’s Pulp III: A Short Biography of the Banished Book, and she was a curator of the 17th Istanbul Biennial alongside David Teh and Amar Kanwar (both in 2022).

Noura Al-Maashouq is the Director of SAMOCA at Jax—the Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art located in the heart of the Kingdom’s creative district in Diriyah. Previous roles include Creative Producer of Frieze Studios (Frieze) and overseeing exhibitions, publications, public art, and artist projects at a London-based contemporary gallery. Alongside her career, she served on the board of Art U.K., an educational charity, and led UNICEF’s Next Generation London, a philanthropic incubator raising millions for global humanitarian efforts. Al-Maashouq is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Courtauld Institute of Art.