Bio — Basmah Felemban

Basmah Felemban (b. 1993, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work navigates the intersections of Islamic art, geometry, digital design, and speculative world-building. Rooted in a background as a self-taught graphic designer, Felemban earned her MA in Islamic and Traditional Art from the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in London. She draws from Arab and Persian cosmographies, cartographic manuscripts, and philosophies from the 10th–12th centuries—traditions that blur the lines between science, mythology, and imagination.

Her practice combines meticulous design methodologies with contemporary tools such as video games, CNC machines, and digital mapping, producing works that range from secret languages and puzzles to interactive interfaces, digital video art, and sculptures. Felemban’s research spans geology, genealogy, math, invasive species, and poetry as building blocks for world-building. This approach explores identity, migration, and the gaps in collective memory, particularly within her family history, shaped by oceans and service in pilgrimage.

Deeply influenced by her upbringing in Jeddah—its multicultural legacy and proximity to water—Felemban resists the external framing of Islamic art through a historical or Western gaze. Instead, her work embraces a forward-looking, speculative lens, grounded in the belief that imagination and futurism is essential for discovery and expansion.

Felemban’s exhibitions include Consecrated Networks (Athr Gallery), First House (Islamic Art Biennale), Worldbuilding (Julia Stoschek Collection), So it Appears (ICA at VCU), and Rhizoma (Venice Biennale). Felemban has established herself as a curator deeply committed to fostering the Saudi art community, she has led projects such as The Waves Won't Stop When You Leave (2019), RSH Festival (2023), and the 9th edition of Young Saudi Artists titled Biting Between One’s Teeth (2025).

Currently, Felemban explores video game development as an artistic practice, continuing to uncover the esoteric dimensions of the world—starting from the self and radiating outward—anchoring her belief that art is a vital existential tool for expanding human understanding.