Galerie Krinzinger is pleased to present Stories matter, an exhibition by renowned Saudi Arabian artist Maha Malluh. In her exploration of collective memory and social identity, Malluh makes everyday objects visible. Complementing this, the gallery will present Other stories in the showroom — a group exhibition curated by Maha Malluh, bringing together artists from Saudi Arabia whose works present new, alternative narratives. The exhibition features works by Tarfa Fahad Al Saud, Mohammed Alhamdan (7AMDAN), Nora Alissa, Kholood Al-Bakr and Abdullah Al Othman.

Nora Alissa is a Riyadh based photographer whose lifelong fascination with the relationship between humans, their surroundings, and the intersection of the material and spiritual world has shaped her artistic journey. After completing a MA with distinction in Photography and Urban Cultures at Goldsmiths College, University of London, in 2010, she honed her skills through both academic and practical experience, including work at the Horniman Museum and participation in numerous international exhibitions, among them Hajj, le pèlerinage à La Mecque at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. In 2023, she was invited to take part in the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennial in Saudi Arabia, further solidifying her presence in the contemporary art scene. Currently, Alissa is engaged in several projects exploring themes of lived experience, everyday life, space, and culture.

Kholood Al-Bakr is a visual artist and curator. Her photographic practice combines her background in English literature with a deep interest in social issues. Her photographic work documents urban everyday life in Saudi Arabia. In 2016, she co-founded Phonart Saudi, a platform that merges artistic creation with smartphone technology, consciously pushing the boundaries of traditional photography. In addition to her artistic work, she regularly curates contemporary art exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Her core mission is to understand art as a tool for cultural dialogue and social change, encouraging younger generations toward creative self-expression.

Mohammed Alhamdan (7amdan) is a polymath artist from Saudi Arabia (born 1993) whose work operates at the intersection of sound, image, object, and narrative. His artistic practice is deeply rooted in the rhythms of everyday life, drawing from the nuances of Saudi heritage, oral traditions, and social behavior to construct new aesthetic languages that reflect the complexity of the present. He reimagines archival materials, street culture, and daily practices to challenge dominant timelines and raise questions about memory, identity, and transformation. Through sound installations, fashion objects, film, and immersive environments, Hamdan blurs the boundaries between the traditional and the contemporary not as opposites, but as elements of a continuous spectrum. His practice is a means of documenting the overlooked, amplifying what is fading, and creating moments where the personal becomes collective. He is drawn to materials and symbols that carry layered meanings objects embedded with stories, contradictions, and emotional weight. His process is one of excavation and recomposition: uncovering what has been forgotten and giving it new life in another form.

Abdullah Al Othman (born 1985 in Saudi Arabia) is a self-taught conceptual artist and researcher whose interdisciplinary practice is deeply rooted in the cultural and societal transformations of Saudi Arabia. His work blends traditional motifs with Western influences, exploring contrasts such as desert and city, or intangible heritage and everyday objects. Al Othman investigates the relationship between people and their natural and built environments, viewing art as a tool for human development. His works are marked by narrative structures that intertwine reality and illusion to open new perspectives on human experience. He is particularly fascinated by the play of light as both a physical and symbolic element, which he expresses through materials such as chrome, stainless steel, and neon. Parallel to this, Al Othman works with language as an open field for analysis and reconstruction. Starting from moments of absence — such as missing letters or fragmented words — he explores the fragility of symbolic systems. Here, incompleteness is not seen as a flaw, but as a creative force that generates new, open meanings. Language is staged as a living organism between structure and decay, inviting viewers to question their perception and discover alternative readings. By merging urban materials with textual spaces, Al Othman creates works that highlight the tension between the urge for expression and the limits of language. In this way, absence becomes another form of presence and a trigger for artistic vision.

Born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where she lives and works, Tarfa Fahad Al Saud is a multidisciplinary artist and creative consultant focusing on memory, time, and transformation. She studied Fine Arts at the Arts and Skills Institute (Boxhill) in Saudi Arabia.

Her research-driven practice spans mixed media, installation, video, and photography. In series such as Rain or the land and human, she processes traces of rain, stone, and landscape as expressions of collective memory and cultural heritage. She explores layering, transparency, and transitions — always in tension between visibility and concealment. Al Saud’s works have been exhibited widely, including in the Saudi Pavilion at Expo Dubai (2021), Misk Art Week (2019), Abu Dhabi Art, and the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris (2018).