How We Met: Ahmed Mater and Armin Linke

Join us for this special closing edition of "How We Met" featuring pioneering Saudi artist Ahmed Mater and Milan-born photographer Armin Linke.
The duo's collaborative artwork "Saudi Futurism" is one of the Biennale's highlights, combining photography and installation to document the nation's metamorphosing landscapes. This partnership of like-minded artists led to an upcoming show at SAMOCA.
Don't miss the opportunity to hear firsthand how their intuitive, improvisational, and research-driven journey took them from NEOM to Thuwal, Riyadh, Dhahran, and beyond, as they documented the shifting soil of Saudi.

Physician turned artist, Dr. Ahmed Mater is one of the most significant cultural voices documenting and scrutinising the realities of contemporary Saudi Arabia. Forging an ongoing, complex mapping of the Kingdom, his practice explores collective memories to uncover and record unofficial histories. The historical, geographical and topical breadth of his research-led inquiries are sharpened by the incisive actions of his conceptual works. With this scope, Mater imagines possible prognoses for a land of unprecedented religious, social, economic, and political influence. His life has been lived poised at intersections, tracing fracturing fault lines of vying systems: past, present and future; tradition and innovation; heritage and globalisation; religion, faith, economic prowess and modernisation. Using photography, film, sculpture and performance, he maps, documents and analyses these changes, considering the psychological impact on the individual, the community, society, and the world.

Armin Linke is a photographer and filmmaker who documents the impact of globalization, the built environment, and postindustrial economies while questioning the nature of the photographic medium and its conventions of display. Often working with scientists and other experts, he has explored topics ranging from space mining to a particle physics laboratory, power sources, and his own photographic archive. He has had solo exhibitions recently at Centre Pompidou (2023/2024), the Canadian Centre for Architecture (2023), and the Luxembourg Pavilion at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale (2023). He is a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.