During the visit of the President of the French Republic to Saudi Arabia in December 2021, the two countries signed an agreement for the establishment of a cultural institution in AlUla: Villa Hegra.
Villa Hegra, scheduled to open in 2026, will draw on the expertise of the Agence française pour le development d’AlUla (AFALULA) and aims to promote artistic creation and dialogue between French and Saudi cultures. A place of design and integration, with the ambition to radiate throughout the region, Villa Hegra follows the example of its prestigious predecessors: Villa Médicis, Casa de Velázquez and Villa Kujoyama.
As part of the preparation of the cultural and artistic activities of Villa Hegra, a call for projects (“AlUla: transformations and social dynamics of a development project”) has been launched in partnership with the Institut d’études de l’Islam et des sociétés du monde musulman (IISMM – CNRS/EHESS) and CEFREPA.
The aim of this call is to stimulate research in the human and social sciences on the transformations brought about by the development of the AlUla site by supporting several research programs over a period of one year in 2024-2025.
In collaboration with AFALULA and the Royal Commission of AlUla (RCU), CEFREPA is pleased to provide logistical and scientific support to around twenty researchers in the management of the five winning projects of this call. We congratulate the different teams for the excellence of their projects and the richness of the topics addressed:
1. “An Oasis Facing Globalisation: The History and Development of Hegra since the late 19th Century” (PI: Ulrike Freitag, Director, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin & Professor at Institute of Islamic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin)
2. “The Linguistic Ecology of AlUla (LEAlUla): urbanization and language change in north- western KSA” (PI: Stefano Manfredi, Researcher at CNRS, Director of Laboratoire SeDyL, Structure et Dynamique des Langues, CNRS UMR-8202, INALCO, IRD UR-135).
3. “The oasis of AlUla, future centrality?” (PI: Sophie Brones, Associate Professor, Versailles National Architecture School, ENSA Versailles)
4. “Learning from AlUla” (PI: Pascal Ménoret, Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World, University of Oxford)
5. “Archaeology in AlUla, between History and Memory” (PI: Louis Blin, Director of Middle East Directions at the European University Institute, Florence).
