Following our display design for the Al Sabah collection objects at the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in 2023, we are immensely grateful to Diriyah Biennale Foundation for commissioning Morris Associates a second time, for the 2025 biennale in Jeddah titled, “And All That Is In Between: Exploring Faith Through Feeling, Thinking, and Making”, which opened in late January of that year.
Our brief for the latest iteration was significantly expanded from 2023, requiring us to create an innovative, unique, and flexible design for a suite of 144 museum quality display cases. We were also tasked with determining the placement and display of over 600 objects within these cases, distributed across the site’s various galleries.
For this challenging endeavour, a totally fresh, minimal and flexible approach to museum display case design was adopted and conceptualised by our team, utilising our considerable experience of object display methodology. This included several unique features that Morris Associates had devised and were seeking to develop and incorporate for a number of years.
With the trust and endorsement of the client team, and in close collaboration with Goppion (display case manufacturers), and Black Engineering (project management), we meticulously refined the detailing and functionality. This culminated in the creation of a genuinely new product of the highest quality, despite the most challenging lead-times, so our sincere thanks to everyone who contributed to this process.
Needless to say, the cases and object layouts were configured and proportioned to reflect the curators’ demanding object groupings, as well as to respond to the overarching scenography. To fully appreciate the enormity of the project one had to see this in reality, as unfortunately, the images displayed on this website only partially reflect the cathedral-like spaces, with the galleries covering 100,000 m2, a truly immense site.
Clearly, our involvement was only part of a far greater Saudi and international effort, which aside from a considerate client, included an extraordinary contribution from numerous renowned museums and private collections, as well as artists, architects, conservators, curators, lighting consultants, mount-makers, project managers and registrars. Far too many to thank and recognise individually, but a team that excelled in this ambitious endeavour to bring together the very best of Islamic art in its many forms.
