“May Your Tears Never Dry, You Who Weep Over Stones,” is built from more than 29,000 handcrafted clay bricks and represents a major celebration of craft traditions that are increasingly under pressure.
Beyond its striking visual impact, Saudi Arabia’s pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale has emerged as a powerful statement about the future of traditional craftsmanship, placing artisan knowledge and collective making at the centre of one of the world’s most prestigious contemporary art events.
Created by Saudi-Palestinian artist Dana Awartani, “May Your Tears Never Dry, You Who Weep Over Stones,” is built from more than 29,000 handcrafted clay bricks and represents a major celebration of craft traditions that are increasingly under pressure from modernisation, displacement and industrial production.
The installation occupies the entire floor of the Saudi pavilion, forming an expansive earthen mosaic landscape through which visitors move along pathways lined with geometric, floral and animal motifs inspired by artistic traditions found across the Arab world.
Yet the significance of the project lies as much in how it was made as in its final appearance.
Produced through nearly 30,000 hours of artisan labour, the installation reflects what Awartani describes as the principle of “many hands,” a collaborative approach deeply rooted in traditional craft cultures, where knowledge is passed from one generation to the next through practice rather than formal instruction.
Teams of craftspeople worked alongside the artist throughout the project, shaping and assembling thousands of clay elements using techniques that have survived for centuries.
The result is an artwork that doubles as an act of cultural preservation. Rather than treating craft merely as decoration or historical reference, the pavilion presents it as a living system of knowledge capable of carrying memory, identity and cultural values across generations.
Its materials reinforce that message. The clay was sourced from four separate regions of Saudi Arabia, reflecting the diversity of the kingdom’s landscapes and traditions. Left unbound, the bricks are designed to change naturally during the exhibition, developing cracks that symbolise both vulnerability and endurance.
The installation also reflects a broader shift within contemporary art, architecture and design, where increasing attention is being paid to the networks of expertise and human relationships behind creative production.
For Awartani, traditional craftsmanship offers more than aesthetic value. It serves as a repository of stories, skills and cultural memory that might otherwise disappear in an era defined by speed, automation and mass production.
The project draws upon historical forms and artistic traditions from across the region while addressing contemporary issues including conflict, displacement and the protection of cultural heritage.
In doing so, it transforms craft from a historical practice into a contemporary cultural force, demonstrating how traditional knowledge can remain relevant in addressing some of the most pressing questions facing societies today.
At a Biennale often dominated by technological experimentation and conceptual spectacle, the Saudi pavilion offers a different proposition: that the patient work of human hands remains one of the most powerful tools for preserving identity, transmitting memory and shaping the future.
Through its celebration of artisanship and collective creation, the installation argues that heritage survives not through monuments alone, but through the people who continue to make, teach and sustain it.
