Omani artist Hassan Meer showcases his work at Prince Faisal bin Fahd Arts Hall, Riyadh (KSA) between September 16 – March 31, 2027

‘Along the Way’, a joint exhibition featuring 34 artists from around the world, at Prince Faisal bin Fahd Arts Hall, Riyadh (KSA) includes the work of senior Omani artist Hassan Meer – ‘Beyond the Hills’, 2008.

The Misk Art Institute, KSA, has announced that, drawing inspiration from the travels of Ibn Battuta, the exhibition explores travel as a transformative journey of knowledge and self-discovery, examining themes of maps, wayfinding, memory, and humanity’s connection to nature through paintings, sculptures, installation art, and photography.

The joint exhibition also displays rare historical manuscripts, including the Book of Fixed Stars by Al-Sufi and Nuzhat al-Qulub by Al-Qazwini, which contains a circular world map, alongside an engraved brass astronomical disc from Persia, reflecting Islamic civilisation’s contributions to navigation and astronomy.

Movement exceeds the idea of physical relocation. It unfolds across time, along roads and coastlines, through skies, screens, and shared spaces, as a way of knowing that engages both mind and body. It is not solitary. It takes shape through the ties that bind individuals to one another, and through the circulation of experience by which understanding is formed, carried, and transformed, a statement from Stal Gallery said explaining the theme of the exhibition. 

Travel, in this sense, holds a spiritual resonance, a passage through which the self is unsettled and remade and each threshold offers the possibility of renewal. The selected works span a multitude of forms, from painting, photography, and sculpture to digital practices and archival materials, including rare manuscripts.

Across them, movement unfolds through landscapes, language, memory, cosmology, bodies in transition and histories in motion. Mapping emerges here as an open and interpretive act, shaped by lived experience rather than fixed coordinates. 

At its core, this exhibition asks what it means to know through movement. The works approach cartography as both subject and method, loosening its structures into shifting forms. Routes fold back on themselves, and space is reimagined through what can be understood as affective cartography – maps that represent subjective human experiences and emotional life. This extends into poetic cartography, based on the mythical, affective, and topological as opposed to a geometric concept of space, where movement becomes an expressive act. 

The exhibition arranges the works as a series of crossings rather than a linear progression, encouraging viewers to pause and reorient themselves in relation to the works and to each other. In doing so, ‘Along the Way’ performs the idea it proposes – movement as a condition of knowing. Each gesture, image, and archival fragment forms a coordinate in an expanding map of perception, where moving through space becomes an act of learning, and where every outward journey turns inward toward recognition and understanding. 

‘Beyond the Hills’ is a work by artist Hassan Al Meer that represents a journey beyond the boundaries of the physical world and into an unseen realm, where the hill becomes a symbol of the threshold between what we know and what remains unknown.

Meer explains, “it is a spiritual journey in which the body does not necessarily move. Instead, the journey begins when the human spirit and imagination travel toward distant places, moving beyond reality into a surreal space open to endless possibilities. The body remains still, while the spirit travels through spaces that are not bound by the ordinary rules of time and place.”

The work is presented as a photographic scene in which the hill stands opposite the sea, with birds appearing across the surrounding space. These elements become symbols of different stages of the human journey. The hill represents transition and crossing; the sea represents the unknown and infinite possibilities; while the birds suggest freedom and the desire to move beyond the familiar.

“Beyond the Hill is a journey into the unknown – a journey that a person may plan, yet can never fully predict where it will lead. Life, much like this journey, takes us through stages and paths that cannot always be anticipated. Every time we cross one hill, a new horizon and new questions appear before us,” he adds.

The work does not speak of travel as a physical movement from one place to another, but rather as an inner journey – the journey that takes place within the spirit and imagination when a person transcends the boundaries of reality and enters worlds that may exist only within themselves.

Looking beyond…

How do you view your participation in this exhibition? Have you participated in it before?

I am very proud to be part of ‘Along the way’ presented at the Misk Foundation, one of the active and influential cultural spaces in the region. The exhibition has been beautifully curated by a young generation of Saudi curators, and I am particularly impressed by their talent, ability and energy.

The exhibition explores the idea of travelling, viewing spaces and discovering hidden places. It is my first participation in this particular exhibition, and I am very pleased to be part of it.

What has been the response of viewers/artists to your work?

Saudi Arabia is becoming an important centre for art and cultural movements in the region. It is hosting many significant international exhibitions and is taking a leading role in contemporary art. This exhibition will run for six months, giving audiences plenty of time to engage with the works and their different concepts. So far, the response has been very positive, and viewers have been intrigued by the variety of ideas and approaches presented in the exhibition.

Why did you choose these works for the exhibition?

The works were selected by the curator because they connect strongly with the central concept of the exhibition, particularly the idea of travel and movement. My work explores a different kind of journey – the travel of the soul in relation to the physical body. It is not only about travelling from one physical place to another, but also about the inner journey that takes place within us.

What is the message through these works?

My simple message is that travel is not always physical. We can travel through our imagination, our memories and our souls while our bodies remain in one place. Beyond the Hills is about looking beyond what we can see and discovering the hidden spaces within and around us.