Creativity at the Heart of Change: Learning from AlUla
Image Credit: RCU Office, AlUla KSA, 15 September 2025
This September, Creative Newham joined the British Council’s Saudi Now programme, a cross-cultural initiative exploring how creativity and community can drive transformation. Our journey took us to AlUla, a region in north-west Saudi Arabia where desert, heritage and imagination meet.
AlUla is extraordinary; a landscape of golden rock and ancient history, now at the centre of one of the world’s most ambitious cultural regeneration projects. The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) is investing deeply in arts, education and cultural infrastructure, working to build a creative economy that honours heritage while opening new opportunities for local people.
Our visit was a chance to experience this transformation first-hand, to meet those leading it, and to listen to the educators, artists and cultural workers shaping AlUla’s future.
Listening to Local Voices
Image credit: Madiresat Addireh, AlUla, KSA, 16 September 2025, S Amidi
Across focus groups and meetings, we spoke with teachers, curriculum developers, artist-makers, photographers, and jewellery designers, each one contributing to the region’s growing creative ecosystem.
Educators spoke passionately about wanting to nurture creativity in classrooms, to give young people the skills to thrive in culture and tourism. There was strong interest in the development of the creative curriculum.
In the creative community, we met women balancing artistry and entrepreneurship; many connected through Madrassat Adirah, an artisan training school helping craft-makers bring their work to market. Their drive was unmistakable: they weren’t asking for charity or shortcuts, but for skills, mentorship and business support that would allow them to turn creativity into sustainable livelihoods.
Building the Role of the Cultural Producer
Image Credit: Maddressat Addireh, 15 September 2025, S Amidi
What we saw in AlUla mirrors much of what drives our work in Newham: the belief that creativity flourishes when it’s owned by communities themselves. That’s why our proposed Cultural Producers Programme, developed in partnership with The British Council and RCU, aims to nurture exactly that: local creative leadership.
The programme would support a skills pipeline that identifies and develops talent from school-age to professional practice; builds capacity across heritage, design, media and culinary arts; and creates pathways for entrepreneurship and collaboration. It’s about cultivating the people who make culture happen; the producers, connectors and changemakers who bring creative ecosystems to life.
Shared Values, Shared Learning
Image Credit: The Music Hub, AlUlA, KSA, 17 September 2025, J Mason
The parallels between AlUla and Newham are striking. Both are places of heritage and resilience. Both hold deep creative potential. And both are discovering how investment in people, not just projects, can unlock cultural and social renewal.
What we witnessed in AlUla was more than a development project. It was a community learning to tell its own story: artists becoming entrepreneurs, educators becoming facilitators of creativity, and cultural workers building new futures rooted in pride and place.
This experience affirmed something we already know: when creativity is shared, supported and celebrated, communities thrive. Whether in the sandstone valleys of AlUla or the streets of East London, the principle is the same, sustainable cultural growth begins with people.
As we continue our collaboration with the RCU, British Council and our partners in AlUla, we carry that learning home; inspired, connected, and more committed than ever to championing creative ecosystems that are inclusive, equitable and locally led.
About the Delegation
Image Credit: Old Town, AlUla, KSA, 14 sEPTEMBER 2025, S Amidi
Sanaz Amidi
Chair, Creative Newham & Strategic Development & Partnerships, University of East London
Sanaz Amidi is an international consultant with over 20 years’ experience in the creative economy, specialising in cultural leadership, placemaking, creative workforce programmes and strategy. As CEO, she transformed Rosetta Arts, doubling its investment and embedding diversity and creative health at its core. As an executive coach, she supports cultural leaders to overcome challenges such as work-life balance, isolation and burnout. Sanaz also serves on the boards of the English National Ballet and Creative United, driving inclusive growth across the sector.
Anamaria Wills
Course Director, Cultural Producers Programme
Anamaria spent two decades as a theatre producer, working with companies from DV8 to the National Theatre, and internationally with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Ariane Mnouchkine’s Théâtre du Soleil and Jiri Kylian’s Nederlands Dans Theater. A recipient of the TMA Award for Outstanding Contribution to Theatrical Life, she went on to found and lead the Creative Industries Development Agency for 20 years. Today she works as a mentor, manager and educator, and serves as Chair or Strategic Advisor to five arts organisations — bringing decades of expertise in creative enterprise and innovation to her role with Creative Newham.
