Join the Jameel Library for a wide range of programmes led by community members this October! You could also pitch your own programme here. 

A Jameel Library Exhibition | At the Edge of Renewal with the Khaleeji Women’s Library and Archive

October 8, 2026 – April 10, 2027

The Jameel Library presents ‘At the Edge of Renewal’, a six-month exhibition developed by the Khaleeji Women’s Library & Archive (KWLA) and curated by Jood AlThukair, including work from Nouf AlHarthi, Hayfa AlGwaiz, Abeer Sultan, Dalal AlObaidi, Yasmeen Abdal, Fatima Al Jarman and Maitha Ali, among others.

‘At the Edge of Renewal’ is part of a series of exhibitions at the Jameel Library that invites book artists, librarians and publishers to reimagine the library through curated displays and reading lists. Each iteration becomes a library within the library, offering new ways to encounter collections, ideas and practices of reading.

Taking Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1981 essay “World-Making” as its point of entry, the exhibition begins with the idea of a world already here, already made, and the work of remaking it from within. On these terms, the exhibition assembles a record of how Khaleeji women have produced, published, and circulated their own work: books, periodicals, ephemera, oral histories, and independent and experimental publications. Much of this material has never been formally collected, and a substantial portion goes on public view here for the first time. 

Working materials, including drafts, artists’ prototypes, dummy books, collages and projects-in-progress, are placed alongside finished works. Both are presented as primary documents, with attention given to the distance between them: the processes, decisions and possibilities that lie between a work in progress and its final form.

Reading Circle: The Sound of Grief with Sara Alabdali

Delivered in Arabic
October 23
7-9pm

What does grief sound like? How have poetry and recitation carried mourning and longing across cultures around the Hijaz and the Red Sea? 

This reading circle with Sara Alabdali explores the histories of poetry and recitation as forms of remembrance, and the ways grief has been expressed, shared, and carried through the voice. Moving beyond the page, participants will approach reading through different forms of listening, voicing, speaking, reciting, and making.

The session will include listening to and reading Sara’s work, Water Poem, presented in Red Wind, Coral Worlds exhibition, alongside a selection of texts and sounds that open up conversations around poetry, grief, voice and the Red Sea. Through this process, participants will create collective sounds as a continuation of Water Poem, building a shared sonic layer around its words. The workshop findings will develop into an artwork, under the theme Seven Poems Underground, of which Water Poem is the first in the series. 

RSVP here.

About

Sara Alabdali is an artist and researcher based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Her work, which primarily explores identity and material culture through painting, delves into the complexities of belonging and historical narratives. She has worked as a consultant on traditional arts and crafts, advising prestigious international and governmental clients. She was appointed as assistant curator for the second Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah. In 2025, she published her first novel, Departure in the Depths of Madinah, further expanding her practice into literary storytelling.

Her artistic practice focuses on bringing overlooked historical contexts into the spotlight, particularly those related to women, architecture, and social structures. Through her paintings, she seeks to tell the untold stories of these subjects, often marginalized in art and culture.

Grotto’s Fall Reading Series | The Unseen: Jinn Literature in Ghazi Al-Gosaibi’s “Al-Jinniyyah”

October 31
4-6pm

This Autumn, Grotto, a cultural initiative based in Jeddah, invites readers to cross into speculative

literature, a season dedicated to “The Unseen & The Unnamed.” They will examine how stories step beyond strict realism to explore how hidden forces, secret knowledge, and the power of language shape human identity, belief, and reality itself.

This October session of Grotto’s Fall Reading Series will focus on how supernatural folklore, unseen worlds, and Jinn literature intersect with modern Arab narrative. Participants will delve into how language and true-name magic and regional heritage are woven into storytelling to reflect the boundaries of reality, examine broader questions of identity, power, and human equilibrium.

RSVP here.

Book of the Month

Al-Fann wa Al-Samri  by Abdullah Abdulaziz Al-Duwaish

This month’s pick is known for its documentation of the poetry, music, and oral traditions surrounding al-fann and samri in the Arabian Peninsula. First published in 1983, the book offers a glimpse into how songs and verses have carried cultural memory across generations, while raising an enduring question: what happens when living traditions move from performance and collective memory into the archive?