This year’s Dubai Design Week, which runs until Sunday 8 November, will be judged by who turns up. With fewer international exhibitors and the Gulf bracing for renewed escalation in the war with Iran, attendance will invite plenty of speculation about confidence in the region. Despite this, the annual creative festival deserves support: designers need clients and clients need reasons to keep making plans. Those behind the event, however, should resist the temptation to present its existence as proof that uncertainty has passed.
A crowded opening can provide reassurance without revealing much about a studio’s prospects six months from now, while a nervous commercial climate can encourage familiar choices. It means that this year, the festival needs curatorial nerve and a willingness to give space to experiments whose value is not immediately obvious to a sponsor or buyer – and especially if those taking the risks are based in the UAE.
Case in point is the work of Nao Architects, founded by Reem Nassour, whose Three Gardens and a Room project was selected as one of this year’s Urban Commissions. The win has seen the Dubai-based practice build an installation that softens the hard surfaces of the Dubai Design District through shade and filtered light. Meanwhile, the UAE Designer Exhibition’s “Inherited Futures” theme, shaped by architect and designer AlZaina Lootah, spotlights contemporary approaches to inherited materials and ways of making. Together, these projects place an understanding of the everyday needs of Gulf residents, at the centre of the event.
“Serotonin” by Milan-based Sara Ricciardi Studio
Other creative outfits, such as Dubai- and Milan-based Isola Design Group, are giving back to the immediate community, commissioning playful works to populate the neighbourhood surrounding its base on The Lana Promenade. Highlights include “Serotonin” by Milan-based Sara Ricciardi Studio, which features vibrant colours and optical geometries. There’s also a showcase of grand ceramic forms, painted with landscapes, called “Where the Land Remains” by Tehran- and Dubai-based Pots and Pines in partnership with artist Sayeh Mansor.
International participation has long been important because it attracts buyers, as well as ideas and professional relationships, so its reduction will certainly be a loss. And while “local” should not become a default term to describe creatives in a city whose origins are so diverse, its talent is showing it has the chops to stand out on its own.
For all the innovation, what will happen after the installations pack up and disperse remains to be seen. Could Nassour’s approach to shade and shared spaces shape an ordinary neighbourhood? Will designers secure commissions from attending developers and hoteliers? And will Isola Design Group’s interventions recharge its local community? Greater visibility means little if it never reaches a purchasing decision. And maybe that’s where organisers can play an outsized role this year: efforts to connect the city’s local studios to manufacturers and buyers should continue long after the event has shut its doors.
Inzamam Rashid is Monocle’s Gulf correspondent. For more opinion, analysis and insight,subscribe to the magazine today.
