Situated in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Jeddah Historic District, the teamLab Borderless Jeddah project is one of the Quality of Life Programme’s initiatives to develop and foster cultural and arts exhibition infrastructure, aiming to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s contribution to arts and culture, one of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 goals.
The tickets for the museum are now available on the official website.
Athletics Forest is a creative athletic space based on the concept of understanding the world through the body and thinking about the world three-dimensionally. People immerse their entire body in the complex and physically challenging three-dimensional space of the interactive world.
Humans perceive the world with their bodies and think with their bodies. When you explore a complex, three-dimensional world with your own body, you physically perceive the world three-dimensionally and in turn your thoughts become three-dimensional. We started this project, Athletics Forest, with the hopes to enhance three-dimensional and higher-dimensional thinking.
Spatial awareness is said to be correlated with innovation and creativity. I grew up in a rural area and played in the mountains, but in today’s society and schools, the body is stationary. I think cities are surrounded too much by flat information such as books, TV, and smartphone screens. That is why we created a three-dimensional space that excessively demands the physical body. It is a space where people can perceive art with their physical bodies.
teamLab Founder, Toshiyuki Inoko
Read more about the Athletics Forest concept: https://www.teamlab.art/concept/athletics-forest/jeddah/
Future Park is an educational project based on the concept of collaborative creation (co-creation). It is an amusement park where people can enjoy creating the world freely with others.
An artwork comes to life through the process of people creating something together with others. As people continue to co-create, the artwork evolves endlessly.
Read more about the Future Park concept: https://www.teamlab.art/concept/future-park/jeddah/ .
Athletics Forest
A group of giant ovoids that slowly and continuously float and sink. When they are pushed by a person or receive an impact, they change color and produce a tone unique to that color. The surrounding ovoids also respond one after another, continuously changing to the same color and emitting the same tone.
Rapidly Rotating Bouncing Spheres in the Caterpillar House
Rapidly Rotating Bouncing Sphere is a space made up of spheres that people can jump on. The spheres rotate at high speed, but when people approach them, they stop rotating and become easier to step on.
When people bounce on the spheres, the spheres shine. If they bounce on spheres of the same color in succession, the spheres will pop and particles of light spread out into the space. If people bounce on more spheres of the same color in succession, caterpillars are born, and if they keep jumping on the same colored spheres in succession until the end, all the spheres of the same color will pop, and many caterpillars will be born.
Multi Jumping Universe
Multi Jumping is a flexible surface that multiple people can jump on at the same time, and sink or jump higher than usual.
When you stand on Multi Jumping, the surface beneath your feet sinks, creating warps in space and time. This distortion attracts stardust from the universe and births new stars. If you continue to jump on a star, the star will grow. When the life of the star ends, it returns to stardust and becomes the building blocks of new stars.
A gigantic and heavy star will eventually become a black hole that swallows up all the surrounding stars and stardust.
Soft Terrain in Granular Topography – A Whole Year per Year
Soft Terrain is a very soft, three-dimensional slope. Various granules of light flow from high to low elevations along the terrain, layering onto each other and creating a stratum pattern.
The ground sinks beneath people, and granules of light gather in these sunken areas. As people walk, the granules burst out and intermix, changing the stratum pattern.
The color of the granules of light change with the seasons, in the real flow of time.
Aerial Climbing through a Flock of Colored Birds
Aerial Climbing is a space where horizontal bars of varying colors are suspended by ropes and float three-dimensionally in the air. People use these bars to navigate the space in mid-air through three dimensions, trying not to fall. As the bars are linked, the movement caused on a bar by a person will affect the bars on which other people are standing. The arrangement of the bars vary depending on the selected route, so people’s experiences will differ depending on the various ways the bars are linked.
When people climb onto the bars, they shine brightly and produce a sound specific to its color. The more people climb onto bars of different colors, the more sounds will be played at the same time. Flocks of birds fly around freely in this space. When they fly near the people in the space, they take on the color of the bars on which the people stand.
Future Park
Connecting! Block Town
Create a city where trains, cars, and various vehicles run, by placing connecting blocks on the table. The same type of blocks can connect to each other, allowing vehicles to run along roads and train tracks created by the connections. The vehicles will evolve as you connect more blocks.
Sketch Ocean
All the various fish drawn by everyone swim around in this ocean.
Color in a fish on the paper provided and see the picture you have colored come to life, swimming out into the ocean in front of you together with fish drawn by other people. If you touch the fish, they will swim away. You can also feed the fish by touching the food bags.
Sometimes, the fish leave the room, transcend the boundaries between artworks, and begin to swim through the museum. The tuna transcend the physical boundaries of the museum and swim out into the Sketch Ocean or Sketch Aquarium: Connected World artworks in exhibitions around the world. Similarly, tuna drawn in other parts of the world may appear and swim into the Sketch Ocean right in front of you.
A Window to the Universe where Little People Live
This is a window into the universe where little people live.
You can create a picture by drawing lines with a light pen or creating shapes with a light stamp. Each line has a special power depending on its color, and influences the little people’s world. The shapes created by the light stamps appear in the little people’s world and start to move. Yellow lines make the little people bounce and fly. Blue lines speed up the little people, making them run faster.
Draw a big picture and try lots of stamps together with those around you. Create a new world in the little people’s universe, give them various powers and watch them play even more energetically.
A Musical Wall where Little People Live
This is a musical wall where little people live.
The little people run around inside the world of the wall, oblivious to us. However, when stamps of various shapes such as mushrooms, sheep barns, or long sticks of ice are attached to the wall, these objects appear in the world of the little people. The little people notice these and start jumping onto them.
Depending on the stamp, the little people will slide, jump, or climb on top of them. If the stamp is removed, the stamp in the world of the little people will remain for a moment longer before disappearing.
Attach various stamps to the wall, and the little people will play with delight.
Seeds with smiley faces come falling down from above. When the seeds hit the stamps, various notes in different pitches play depending on the type and position of the stamp they hit, eventually creating music.
A Table where Little People Live
This is a table where little people live. The little people run around the table, oblivious to us. However, if you put something, such as your hand, on top of the table, the little people will notice and jump on to it. Depending on the shape of the objects you place on the table, the little people will slide, jump, or climb. Place many objects on the table and the little people will play with delight.
teamLab Borderless
teamLab Borderless is a world of artworks without boundaries, a museum without a map created by art collective teamLab. Artworks move out of rooms, communicate with other works, influence, and sometimes intermingle with each other with no boundaries, forming one borderless world. As people immerse their body in this borderless art, they ‘wander, explore, and discover’. The immense teamLab Borderless Jeddah will comprise the Borderless World, Athletics Forest, Future Park, Forest of Lamps, as well as EN TEA HOUSE, exhibiting some 80 independent yet intricately interrelated works.
Spanning approximately 10,000 sqm of gross floor area, teamLab Borderless Jeddah, the first-ever teamLab Borderless museum to launch in the Middle East, will be permanently established on the shores of Alarbaeen Lagoon overlooking the panoramic views of Jeddah Historic District, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
About teamLab
teamLab (f. 2001) is an international art collective. Their collaborative practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, and the natural world. Through art, the interdisciplinary group of specialists, including artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, and architects, aims to explore the relationship between the self and the world, and new forms of perception.
teamLab is represented by Pace Gallery, Martin Browne Contemporary, and Ikkan Art.
teamLab Borderless Jeddah is a project in collaboration with ATHR Gallery.
About the Saudi Ministry of Culture
Saudi Arabia has a vast history of arts and culture. The Ministry of Culture is developing Saudi Arabia’s cultural economy and enriching the daily lives of citizens, residents, and visitors.
Overseeing 11 sector-specific commissions, the Ministry works towards the support of and preservation of a vibrant culture that is true to its past and looks to the future by cherishing heritage and unleashing new and inspiring forms of expression for all.
Find the Ministry of Culture on social media:
X @MOCSaudi (Arabic); @MOCSaudi_En (English) | Instagram @mocsaudi
About the Quality of Life Program
Launched in 2018 as part of Saudi Vision 2030, is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for individuals and families. This program focuses on creating an enabling environment that supports and develops new opportunities, encouraging participation in cultural, entertainment, sports, tourism activities, and other activities that contribute to improving quality of life. The program aims to generate employment, diversify economic activities, and elevate the status of Saudi cities in global rankings of the best cities to live in.
