Kingdom Photography Award

Project for: Visual Arts Commission · Ministry of Culture, Saudi Arabia
Venue: Hayy Jameel, Jeddah · Abbazia Dorsoduro, Venice
Dates: KPA2 · 11 Feb – 2 Mar 2024 · Hayy Jameel, Jeddah / KPA3 · 30 Apr – 25 May 2025 · Hayy Jameel, Jeddah / KPA3 Venice · 12 Sep – 10 Oct 2025 · Abbazia, Dorsoduro
GPP's role: Chief curator and curatorial partner across KPA2, KPA3 and the BJP supplement

The Project

Saudi Arabia's national photography award. Three editions, two regions, one BJP supplement. Gulf Photo Plus has been chief curator of the Kingdom Photography Award since its second edition — building, with the Visual Arts Commission, a photography platform of international stature inside the Kingdom.

The Kingdom Photography Award (KPA) is the Saudi Visual Arts Commission's flagship photography initiative under the Ministry of Culture. Gulf Photo Plus — led by co-director and chief curator Mohamed Somji — was brought in to elevate KPA beyond a local competition into a globally-recognised regional platform.

Across KPA2 (Al-Ahsa, 2023/24) and KPA3 (Asir, 2024/25) GPP ran the curatorial program end-to-end: open call and jury management, commissioned-artist programme, exploratory regional trips, multi-week micro-residency, full exhibition design, international amplification via a 52-page British Journal of Photography supplement, and a Venice presentation at the Abbazia building in Dorsoduro.

Consecutive editions GPP has curated (KPA2, KPA3, BJP supplement)

1,300+

Open-call participants in KPA3

6,000+

Photographs submitted to KPA3

SAR 400k

KPA3 total prize pool

1,055

KPA3 visitors at Hayy Jameel, Jeddah (VAC source-of-truth)

1,709

KPA2 total visitors (exhibition + public programme)

10 / 5

KPA3 micro-residency mentees / mentors

52 pp

Foiled-cover BJP supplement, issue 7923 (Sep 2025)

The Brief

Build the photography platform a kingdom didn't have.

Dina Amin, CEO of the Visual Arts Commission, set the brief in 2022: “The landscape of Saudi Arabia has not been hugely documented through the lens of fine art and through the lens of photography. We have a beautiful creative community that for many years has not been known. I want the cultural landscape to be captured, celebrated, archived — a point of pride for us all.”

GPP's mandate, refined across KPA2 and KPA3, was twofold: (1) a commissioned-artist programme producing curated bodies of work in a chosen Saudi region; (2) a national open call inviting Saudi-based photographers to submit series under an annual theme. Both strands exhibited side-by-side at Hayy Jameel, Jeddah, with a public programme of talks, walks, workshops and a micro-residency feeding the next edition.

The Challenge

No infrastructure. No precedent. Six workstreams, government-level expectations.

Saudi Arabia had effectively no photography-award infrastructure of comparable scale. GPP's own strategy note recorded it bluntly: "No photography schools. Fairly new. Evidence from submissions. List of photographers making waves internationally." The platform had to be built from scratch — in two consecutive editions across two distant regions (the Al-Ahsa oasis on the Red Sea coast; the Asir highlands of the south-west).

KPA3 alone carried six explicit workstreams: jury management + open call, artist commission + exploratory trip, public programming, micro-residency, sponsorships, and international participation. GPP sat as the curatorial brain and operational glue between the Visual Arts Commission, the executing project agency (The Aimes on KPA2, GExpo on KPA3), and external partners including the British Journal of Photography and Black Engineering in Venice.

No infrastructure. No precedent. Six workstreams, government-level expectations.

Our Approach

A chief curator, a regional immersion, a five-mentor residency, and a world-stage finish.

Mohamed Somji curated KPA2 and KPA3 as Chief Curator — selecting five commissioned photographers each edition, leading exploratory trips into the chosen region, editing the final bodies of work, and pairing the commissions with the open-call winners on the gallery wall. The exploratory trip became a defining ritual: a cultural immersion through which the cohort acclimatised, scouted and shaped distinct projects that wouldn't cannibalise each other.

The micro-residency closed the loop. Ten mentees were paired with five mentors (Roi Saade, Tanvi Mishra, and others); each mentor-mentee pair developed a body of work over multiple weeks that fed forward into the following year's exhibition content. The model turned each edition into a generator for the next.

International amplification arrived in 2025: a 52-page foiled-cover supplement co-produced with the British Journal of Photography, distributed worldwide with BJP issue 7923; and the KPA3 Venice presentation at the Abbazia building in Dorsoduro — 50 photographic works selected from previous editions, on view from 12 September to 10 October 2025.

The Kingdom Photography Award began as an initiative to spotlight local talent and now reflects a bold, confident visual arts scene in Saudi Arabia.

Dina Amin, CEO of the Visual Arts Commission (Ministry of Culture, Saudi Arabia)

Exhibition Design

When the Fog Whispers — the commission.

Opening Night

Hay Aynek — In a New Light: the open call.

Two exhibitions, side-by-side at Hayy Jameel:

“When the Fog Whispers” — the five commissioned photographers' bodies of work from Asir; and “Hay Aynek — In a New Light” — the thirty open-call winners. Then, the same year, a 50-work selection travelled to the Abbazia building in Venice for a 29-day international showing.

Outcomes

What it delivered.

Established Gulf Photo Plus as the anchor curatorial partner of Saudi Arabia's flagship photography initiative — three consecutive editions, building a multi-year institutional relationship with the Visual Arts Commission.
KPA3's Asir commission (“When the Fog Whispers”, curated by Mohamed Somji) and open-call exhibition (“Hay Aynek — In a New Light”) opened spring 2025 at Hayy Jameel, Jeddah; 1,055 visitors over 26 days per VAC's own closing report.
Co-produced a 52-page foiled-cover supplement with the British Journal of Photography, distributed worldwide with BJP issue 7923 in September 2025 — ~3,500 print + ~8,000 readership reach + 500 internal copies to VAC Riyadh.
KPA3 Venice exhibition “In a New Light” at the Abbazia building, Dorsoduro 172 (12 Sep – 10 Oct 2025) — 50 photographic works selected from previous editions for an international audience.
Pioneered a regional immersion model and a multi-week mentor-residency that feeds work forward, year-on-year — five mentors, ten mentees per cycle.
Built a public-programme architecture that scales: 8 artist talks, 8 photo walks, 5 workshops, a Slidefest opener; designed for a region with effectively no prior photography-award infrastructure.

In the Press

In the media.

The lush mountains of Asir as seen through the lens of five SWANA photographers 1854 Photography (British Journal of Photography) From Tradition to Modernity: Kingdom Photography Award Frames Saudi Narratives BusinessWire Saudi Visual Arts Commission chief shares vision for Kingdom Photography Award The National

Building a national photography platform?

From open call to international amplification — GPP runs curatorial programmes end-to-end at government-stakeholder scale, with editorial-grade exhibition production.

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