Rakhm ‘incubation’

Fahad bin Naif, a Saudi-based architect, artist and urban designer who creates architecturally-conscious art projects, was the winner of the third edition of Ithra Art Prize. His installation — Rakhm which means ‘incubation’ in Arabic — aims to conceptually preserve a nursery as both an urban typology and its ‘incubatees’ as an environmental micro-economy. 

The title of the artwork mirrors the sensitive and the urgency of the content, the goal of which is to safely nurture an intelligent green infrastructure.

The artwork is an illuminated polytunnel that mimics existing urban nurseries in the region with xeriscaping and endemic drought-resistant plants instead of the stale foreign foliage.

The installation can only be experienced externally, reflecting the lack of interaction between local human inhabitants and homegrown vegetation. 

Rakhm challenges the current reality by re-altering the narrative that our environmental economy should give back more than it takes.