As this year's Islamic Arts Biennale comes to an end, AlMusalla will disappear. Its taut palm-fiber threads that once diffused sunlight will be loosened and unwound, its palm-wood panels disassembled, its woven prayer mats removed. The structure once filled with people and light will leave no trace.

A space made through practice rather than permanence, East Studio’s pavilion is not bound to a specific moment or place. It can occur again, elsewhere, in relation to new contexts and events. The inaugural AlMusalla Prize invitescritical reflection on these spaces—how they emerge, dissolve, and, in doing so, momentarily transform the places in which they occur.

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