In JAX, formerly the industrial area of Ad-Diriyah in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, now one of the city’s budding creative districts, is a monumental vessel that appears to have arrived from outer space. It is filled with several large piles of steel wool onto which are placed abstract sculptures made from shredded steel.

At 28 meters in length and 4.5 meters in height, the vessel’s large presence is foreboding. "The Mind Ship Exodus" by Saudi artist Muhannad Shono features black heaps of steel illuminated by projected video, creating playful patterns and movement across the terrifying structure.

“We are lighting up the darkness,” Shono told Al-Monitor. He was commissioned to create the work for the first edition of Noor Riyadh, an annual citywide festival dedicated to art made of light.

“The work is a mindscape, or a landscape of the mind. The vessel is for you to navigate the mind as you navigate ideas,” said Shono, describing it as “the light of the mind in the face of the darkness that is telling you not to create, not to imagine and not to think differently.”