Photo by Marilyn ClarkDalia Alakki is a Saudi creative director and cultural practitioner working across art, design, branding, cultural programming and creative experiences.
Her career began in academia, teaching art and design before transitioning into Saudi Arabia’s growing cultural sector. With a background in interior design and a Master’s in Ephemeral Architecture and Temporary Spaces, her practice has gradually evolved beyond designing physical spaces into shaping the identities, experiences and communities that surround them.
Her work moves fluidly between creative direction, cultural strategy, brand development, curation, production and storytelling—often taking an idea from its earliest concept through to how it is ultimately communicated and experienced by the public.
Dalia joined the Diriyah Biennale Foundation during its formative years, contributing to the institution as its identity and first major cultural programs were being built. She played a key role in developing the Foundation’s overall brand identity and visual language, while also helping shape the initial look and feel of both the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale and the Islamic Arts Biennale.
Her role extended across the creative and public-facing experience surrounding the Biennales—from branding and visual direction to the development and production of event collateral, exhibition catalogs, merchandise and Foundation-wide creative materials. She also worked closely across communications and public programming, contributing to activations and experiences that connected the Biennales with their audiences.
Community has remained central to her practice. Whether working within education, helping build a cultural institution, curating objects, developing a brand or bringing people together around a shared experience, Dalia is interested in the relationships that form around creative work—and in creating the conditions for those relationships to happen.
Today, her independent practice sits at the intersection of culture, creative direction and entrepreneurship. She works across brand strategy, cultural projects and creative concepts, approaching each project not simply as something to design, but as a world to build.