This summit, organized by ACCIONA Living & Culture, featured key voices from the Middle East, including Arwa Al Ali (Ministry of Culture & Diriyah Biennale Foundation), Noura Al-Maashouq (SAMOCA), Hamad Alhomiedan (Royal Commission for AlUla), and Sean Gaffaney (Ilmi, Misk Foundation), who shared Saudi Arabia’s bold cultural vision with the global stage.
Last week, over 300 professionals in museology, architecture, and the arts convened in Madrid for the second edition of the NEXT IN Summit, hosted by ACCIONA Living & Culture. This global event brought together international experts to explore how museums and cultural institutions are evolving in response to societal shifts, digital transformation, and new forms of audience engagement.
This year’s forum featured key voices from Saudi Arabia in a dedicated panel titled “Creative Nations: Redefining Cultural Programming in Saudi Arabia”, highlighting the Kingdom’s unprecedented cultural momentum as it builds future-facing institutions with a startup mindset.
Arwa Al Ali, representing the Ministry of Culture and the Diriyah Biennale Foundation, described the Kingdom as an “oasis of hope” in the region, driven by a digitally native youth population. “70% of the population is under 30… Imagine the explosion of potential when infrastructure and policies are finally there,” she noted. Biennales in Saudi Arabia, such as the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, serve as agile platforms to discuss contemporary issues, merging tradition and innovation in spaces like the Hajj Terminal.
Noura Al-Maashouq of SAMOCA in Riyadh emphasized the freedom and responsibility of building institutions from scratch: “Everyone on this stage… has the opportunity of a blank canvas. It’s a privilege but also a responsibility.” She highlighted the flexibility of non-collecting institutions like SAMOCA to experiment and collaborate closely with artists embedded in the JAX creative district.
From AlUla, Hamad Alhomiedan of the Royal Commission shared how the historic site is positioned as a “global cultural crossroads”. “AlUla is an open living museum, where every initiative feeds into the larger cultural transformation of Saudi Arabia,” he stated. Projects like Wadi AlFann and the new Contemporary Art Museum are central to this regeneration-driven vision.
Sean Gaffaney of Ilmi, part of Misk Foundation, presented Ilmi as an immersive, STEAM-focused cultural center that activates all senses and encourages curiosity among the Kingdom’s youth. “We see our job as showing kids that there are things they can do, places they can go, paths they hadn’t imagined yet,” he said.
Together, these voices reflected a shared ethos: that Saudi Arabia’s cultural future is being shaped in real time by ambitious, community-rooted initiatives that prioritize inclusion, experimentation, and bold imagination.
The summit also featured global figures including 2023 Pritzker Prize-winning architect David Chipperfield, MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry, and Prado Museum director Miguel Falomir. While their insights centered around redefining modern museology, expanding digital access, and diversifying audiences, the Saudi panel stood out as a clear example of how cultural ecosystems can emerge with agility and purpose.
Lowry highlighted that “the concept of modern art is a work in progress,” advocating for museums to collapse boundaries between the virtual and the physical. This idea resonated with Al Ali’s emphasis on using contemporary formats like biennales to reframe sacred and civic spaces in Saudi Arabia as sites of global dialogue.
A ROADMAP FOR SUSTAINABILITY AND INNOVATION
The event also marked the launch of The Ultimate Museum Book, a guide developed by ACCIONA Living & Culture based on research in over 150 museums worldwide. The book outlines best practices for creating sustainable, inclusive, and future-ready cultural institutions—principles echoed in Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 initiatives.
As Arwa Al Ali summarized: “It’s not just about building institutions—it’s about protecting our creative community, taking bold decisions, and creating platforms that allow artists to speak, where they couldn’t before.”
With cultural reinvention driving national narratives across the region, NEXT IN Summit 2025 offered a clear message: the future of museums lies not only in preservation, but in their power to participate, provoke, and pioneer.
