For its second edition, in November 2022, the groundbreaking Noor Riyadh festival of light and contemporary art presents 190 monumental works signed by 130 artists from 40 countries and scattered in 40 emblematic locations throughout the city.

Curated by Hervé Mikaeloff, Dorothy Di Stefano and Jumana Ghouth and adviser Arnaud Morand, Noor Riyadh brings together Saudi and international artists such as Christopher Bauder, Grimanesa Amorós, Gisela Colón, Douglas Gordon, winner of the Turner Prize, Alicja Kwade, Sabine Marcelis, Muhannad Shono, who represented Saudi Arabia at the Venice Biennale 2022, and French artists Daniel Buren, Jean-Michel Othoniel and Bertrand Lavier.

Entitled "We dream of new horizons", this second edition transforms the city into a dazzling nighttime gallery without walls, welcoming over 2.5 million visitors from international audiences to visitors from all over the globe.

The “axion” is a hypothetical elementary particle. If axions exist, they might be a component of cold dark matter. Cosmologists today believe only a fraction of our universe is made up of stars, planets, and living organisms. The other 95% of the universe is dark matter and dark energy. The cold dark matter theory describes how the universe went from a smooth initial state to the uneven distribution of galaxies and their clusters we see today. With AXION (2022), the artist Christopher Bauder explores the ultimate horizon: outer space. This enormous temporary light show has been created specifically for deserts and other dusty environments. With its sprawling array of mirrors and spherical objects, it looks like a giant scientific device for space exploration or particle detection. But once inside, it is a reflection on the potential of axions, dark matter and the idea of the unknown.