More about the Exhibition
Arab Design Now 2026 highlights designers alongside artisans and other makers, the exhibition will uncover the interconnected networks of material intelligence embedded within each practice. Through this dual focus on process and product, the exhibition foregrounds the forces driving contemporary design in the region, reinforcing Design Doha’s role as a platform for critical inquiry, dialogue, and exchange.
A commissioned series of videos and photographs by a variety of audio-visual artists across different geographies accompanies the designs, revealing the often-unseen hands, minds and landscapes behind the works. The selected artists, commissioned directly by the designers, offer an additional artistic interpretation and commentary on the context in which the design is produced, revealing a wider network of connections between creatives working in the same geographies. An installation by Abdulrahman Al Muftah, for example, is accompanied by a short documentary by Amal Al Muftah, which reveals the hands and stories of the artisans involved in the creation process of his work, 'elevating the often-unseen creators behind traditional crafts, exploring their personal connections to their work and the cultural significance of their skills in contemporary Qatar'.
The multiplicity of different contexts presented in the exhibition—the physical and tangible in the foreground, the intangible and digital in the background—is also a response to the increasingly layered visualisations of information, challenging traditional display methods. The audio-visual documentation brings a direct and poetic depiction to the project, an unfolding scenography that takes visitors on a visual journey across the Arab world, from the urban landscapes of Doha to Nubian homes on the banks of the Nile, a textile landfill in Jordan, and the threatened marshlands of southern Iraq.
Within this common attitude, five thematic threads have emerged that relate more closely to this specific moment in time. In the spirit of expanded context and collaboration, five authors were commissioned to reflect on these five threads, attempting to piece together an understanding of the thematic commonalities through the various works.
