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Saudi Culture Ministry Gears Up for DAF Center

The Saudi Culture Ministry is gearing up to open the Diriyah Art Futures (DAF) Center
The Saudi Culture Ministry is gearing up to open the Diriyah Art Futures (DAF) Center
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Saudi Culture Ministry Gears Up for DAF Center

The Saudi Culture Ministry is gearing up to open the Diriyah Art Futures (DAF) Center
The Saudi Culture Ministry is gearing up to open the Diriyah Art Futures (DAF) Center

In collaboration with the Diriyah Company, the Saudi Culture Ministry is gearing up to open the Diriyah Art Futures (DAF) Center, the first center specializing in new media arts in the Arab region.

DAF offers an educational guided program targeting emerging artists from around the world and provides advanced tools that allow them to create their digital artworks under specialized supervision.

The Center will lead the new horizons of creative practices based on the intersection of art and sciences and technology, through education, empowerment and creating vast spaces for innovative artists from around the world.

The Center promises varied programs including a long educational initiative curated for emerging artists specialized in the new media arts. The one-year program is designed in collaboration with Le Fresnoy — Studio National des Arts Contemporains in France, and provides applicants with state-of-the-art professional equipment, a dedicated production budget, and a diverse array of multidisciplinary learning experiences including of theoretical, conceptual and technical education opportunities, as well as individual guidance by international digital artists.

The program attracts emerging innovators from around the world with a focus on candidates from the Middle East and North Africa, offering them an exceptional opportunity to work alongside the world’s most prominent artists in the field of new media and digital arts, and providing them with full support for one year to produce their artwork.

Applicants are required to be 35 years or younger, at the graduate or postgraduate completion stage, with a background in developing and creating digital and new media arts.

Located in the heart of Diriyah, the DAF Center reflects the Ministry of Culture’s commitment to preserving Saudi heritage and providing opportunities for artistic expression that contributes to enriching the prospering artistic landscape in the Kingdom, and enhancing the city’s position as an international cultural destination and a hub for new medias.

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Mosul’s Renowned Minaret Restored from Ravages of ISIS

A view of the Al-Hadba Minaret in the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, which was rebuilt after it was blown up by ISIS militants, in Mosul, Iraq, February 5, 2025. REUTERS/Khalid al-Mousily/File Photo
A view of the Al-Hadba Minaret in the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, which was rebuilt after it was blown up by ISIS militants, in Mosul, Iraq, February 5, 2025. REUTERS/Khalid al-Mousily/File Photo
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Mosul’s Renowned Minaret Restored from Ravages of ISIS

A view of the Al-Hadba Minaret in the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, which was rebuilt after it was blown up by ISIS militants, in Mosul, Iraq, February 5, 2025. REUTERS/Khalid al-Mousily/File Photo
A view of the Al-Hadba Minaret in the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, which was rebuilt after it was blown up by ISIS militants, in Mosul, Iraq, February 5, 2025. REUTERS/Khalid al-Mousily/File Photo

Mosul’s Grand al-Nuri Mosque, known for its eight-century-old leaning minaret, destroyed by ISIS militants in 2017, has been renovated in a boost for Iraq's second city as it rebuilds after long years of war.

From the pulpit of this medieval mosque on July 4, 2014, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a self-styled ‘caliphate’ spanning parts of Syria and Iraq.

Three years later, the ultra hardline group demolished the mosque in the final weeks of a US-backed Iraqi campaign that ousted the militants from Mosul, their de facto capital in Iraq.

Protracted and fierce urban warfare largely reduced the historic landmarks of Iraq's second city to rubble.

Mahmoud Thannon, 70, a tailor who lives near the mosque and runs a tailor shop overlooking the mosque’s minaret, said his two sons were killed before the al-Hadba minaret was demolished.

"When I saw it collapse, I felt even sadder than when I lost my sons," he said. "Watching the Hadba minaret rise again is a joyous day. I feel our pride soaring high as well.”

“My dear martyred sons would be proud to see the minaret rebuilt if they were alive.” said Thannon, speaking inside his shop with images of his two sons hanging behind him.

He broke into tears as he recalled their deaths by shelling in May and June 2017 in the war against ISIS.

Reconstruction and restoration of the mosque and minaret were carried out in partnership with the UN cultural agency UNESCO, the European Union (EU) and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage.

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said over $115 million were mobilized from no less than 15 partners.

“The fact to have it (the minaret) here behind me is like history coming back; is like the identity of this city coming back,” said Azoulay in a speech delivered on February 5 near the mosque to celebrate the completion of the rebuilding work.

The Iraqis called the 150-foot (45-meter) leaning minaret Al-Hadba, or "the hunchback."

The mosque was named after Nuruddin al-Zanki, a noble who fought the early crusaders from a fiefdom that covered territory in modern-day Türkiye, Syria and Iraq. It was built in 1172-73, shortly before his death, and housed an Islamic school.

The Old City's stone buildings, where the mosque is located, date mostly from the medieval period. They include market stalls, a few mosques and churches, and small houses built and rebuilt on top of each other over the ages.