Introduction & Biography
Saeed Gebaan (b. 1989, Abha) works at the intersection of industrial engineering and kinetic art, using installation to interrogate the existence of things: why they are as they are, how they take form, and how their effect seeps into human awareness. In his work, invisible physical forces — energy, sound, motion, buoyancy — shift from subjects of representation to materials of practice. He does not depict these forces; he runs on them, so that the physical phenomenon becomes the work itself rather than a metaphor for it. He was an inventor before he had a name for art, taking machines apart and rebuilding them out of a curiosity about how things work and why. His sister, an artist, was the first to recognize that curiosity as a possible practice. He went on to study industrial engineering, and for years kept science and art on separate tracks — until a visit to the Al-Moftaha art village became a turning point that reconnected them, as he realized that his experimenting, dismantling, and questioning of how things function had been an artistic act all along. The same existential inquiry extends to the local knowledge of the Arabian Peninsula — approached not as heritage to be documented, but as a practice to be reactivated through contemporary means, in search of its latent effect on the present. His work probes the moment in which sensory perception precedes the mind’s comprehension, positioning the viewer not as a spectator but as a participant in the work’s completion. Gebaan is co-founder of Phi Studio (Abha, 2017), an interdisciplinary space dedicated to experimental and collaborative contemporary art. His work has been shown locally and internationally across exhibitions, residencies, and festivals, including the Islamic Arts Biennale (Jeddah), Noor Riyadh, BIENALSUR and SAMoCA (Riyadh), Quoz Arts Fest (Dubai), Fenaa Alawwal (Riyadh), The Nest Festival / Al Riwaq (Bahrain), Cité internationale des arts (Paris), and INTERVALS Festival (Russia). He is a recipient of the Al Balad Grant (2019), the Maan Grants from Athr (2020, 2021), and the Cité internationale des arts grant in partnership with the Visual Arts Commission (2021), with residencies at Al Balad (Jeddah), the Berlin Art Institute, the Misk Art Institute, and Cité internationale des arts (Paris).
Artist Statement
One question drives my work: why do things exist as they do, and how does their effect reach us before we grasp what they are?
I don’t make works that represent invisible forces; I build installations that run on them. I move energy, sound, motion, and buoyancy from something referred to into something lived, so that the physical phenomenon is not a metaphor for the idea but the idea in operation an effect that reaches the body before it reaches the mind.
I borrow the tools of my engineering circuits, motors, systems of motion not merely as means of execution, but as primary artistic materials. By the same logic, I take up local knowledge not to document it, but to reactivate it; what concerns me is summoning what lies latent, not explaining it.
My works offer no answers. They reframe the question before each viewer, placing them in that fragile moment where feeling precedes understanding where the viewer is not an observer, but part of the experience.
Medium
My work combines kinetic systems, sound, light, airflow, reflection, and responsive environments to construct immersive perceptual experiences. Working across sculpture, atmospheric installation, and spatial intervention, I use movement as a condition of instability rather than spectacle - allowing physical systems to influence emotion, awareness, and sensory perception. I often integrate mechanical structures, custom-built systems, industrial materials, and environmental phenomena into installations that continuously shift through time, interaction, and presence. Rather than focusing on a single material or discipline, my practice moves fluidly between art, engineering, atmosphere, and perceptual experience.
Contact to Gebaan
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