Dubai Design Week, the Middle East region’s leading design festival will mark its milestone 10th edition from November 5 to 10. It is the Persian Gulf region’s first globally recognised design week.

This year’s festival will reflect on a decade of design and its influence on the UAE’s dynamic and expanding interior design and furniture market, now estimated at USD 26 billion. The 2024 program will honour the local community, creative talent and regional design vernacular it has aimed to nurture over the past 10 years, while celebrating the city’s evolution as a global design hub. 

Dubai Design Week 2024 will bring together over 500 established and emerging designers and brands from more than 40 countries to showcase new design thinking in the form of installations, exhibitions and experiential mediums. Fueled by rapid urbanisation, a strong real estate market, developments in infrastructure, diversification of the economy and evolving tastes and aesthetic needs of residents, businesses and tourists, Dubai Design Week has matured from its inception in 2015 into a major international design event.

Its success can be attributed to its forward–looking programming, a commitment to innovation and support of local talent and its role in shaping Dubai’s identity as a thriving global centre for design and creativity in the Middle East. It has become a platform for emerging, pioneering and established designers to showcase their work, connect with industry professionals, and gain exposure in the Middle East and beyond.

The anchor event of Dubai Design Week, Downtown Design, will again take place at its home on the d3 Waterfront Terrace from 6 to 9 November. Acclaimed as the region’s leading fair for contemporary and high-quality design, Downtown Design showcases the latest collections, innovative products and design solutions, complemented by a line-up of creative pop-up concepts, installations and networking events, alongside a line-up of talks, keynotes and master classes at The Forum.

Downtown Design is the ultimate destination for those seeking the latest trends in interior design, furniture, lighting and home accessories.

A key highlight of this year’s Dubai Design Week is the launch of Editions, the region’s first limited-edition art and design fair, running from 6 to 9 November. Over 50 galleries, design studios and collectives will exhibit contemporary design, photography, prints, ceramics and works on paper. Positioned alongside Downtown Design’s dynamic program and offering pieces at a range of prices, Editions paves an alternative route to art and design collecting, opening up the opportunities to a wider audience.

Dubai Design Week’s annual design competition, Urban Commissions, returns this year with the theme ‘Tawila’, meaning ‘table’ in Arabic, inviting designers and architects to propose innovative community furniture that explores the table beyond its form and as a facilitator of exchange, tradition and communal experiences.

This year’s winner is Altqadum, a research-based design studio from Oman that specialises in architecture, interior and objects design, led by Marwan Albalushi, Najd Albalushi and Abdulrahim Alkendi.

Their Bab Al Salam Mosque in Muscat is one of Time magazine’s ‘World’s Greatest Places 2024’.

Dubai-based architectural and interior design studio, Bone will present a pavilion made entirely from pre-fabricated earth blocks in collaboration with Fetdeterra, technical specialists in rammed earth architecture from Spain; Japanese architectural firm, Mitsubishi Jisho Design, will invite audiences to experience a traditional tea-house made from 3D printed waste sawdust; tech-driven multidisciplinary practice DEOND, founded by Ross Lovegrove and Ila Colombo, will explore the notion of phygital therapy with an AI-infused ‘second skin’ fabric that responds to the body’s state of being; as well as other installations made from various organic and upcycled materials including banana fibre, soybean wax, henna, Himalayan salt, terracotta and scrap metal.

Japan teahouse for people and pigeons

Monocle will bring the world of design, culture and business to the heart of Dubai for the month of November, launching at Dubai Design Week; celebrating creativity and craftsmanship with Monocle’s shop and café takeover of FRAME in d3, Art Jameel Shop will offer commissioned products by regional designers, and a dedicated retail space featuring social-impact driven brands including MADE 51, a global brand created by the UNHCR – UN Refugee Agency showcasing artisanal homeware and accessories crafted by refugees, and iIn addition, Abu Dhabi-based community arts space 421 will present design-led products by local and regional craft makers through their shop Dukkan421.

Abwab, meaning ‘doors’ in Arabic, is a program that supports designers from the South West Asian and North African (SWANA) region by commissioning installations or pavilions each year thematically remodelled to reflect relevant global and regional contexts.

Since its inception in 2015, over 180 designers from countries including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, India, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the UAE have participated in Abwab. Noticeably missing in this list is Israel nearby, despite the the country giving birth to leading global designers and architects such as Moshe Safdie and Ron Arad.

For the 2024 Dubai Design Week edition, practitioners were invited to propose designs with a focus on vernacular architecture and how community-centric architectural methods—rooted in local materials and technique—can intersect with new environments. This is a topic we have covered extensively on Green Prophet. See our interview with Sandra Persik, the editor of the book Habitat.

Get the Dubai Design Week program here.

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Referencing the many expatriates living (and generating wealth) in the country, he said something I’ve never forgotten: “In my own country, when I speak to people in Arabic, they answer me in English. Everywhere I go. Can you imagine? We are a minority in our own country.” Now, nearly two years later, the Al Ain Zoo reports that Emiratis make up 33 percent of their workforce. That’s 160 young Arabs working for a zoo.

Gone are the days of the typical “lazy Arab.” They exist. For sure they exist (and this is a universal condition), but a relatively small minority is chasing not just their individual dreams, but the dreams of their families and their tribe as well.

They completed their studies in Europe or the United States, or – increasingly – back home, and now they are doing the hard work of undoing mistakes accumulated over the last fifty years since discovering oil in 1960. And they’re doing it in their own culturally-relevant style.

It’s a beautiful thing. But more beautiful still:

UAE Social Transformation  

For years we’ve reported terrible stories about the treatment of both domestic and wild animals (read about how this Dubai resident walks around with a cheetah on a leash), and they continue to manifest in disturbing ways, but it is clear that the UAE in particular has undergone a radical transformation when 16,000 young people are striving towards the singular goal of saving endangered species.

“Al Ain Zoo’s Emirati employees play a vital role in the zoo’s overall strategy, delivering our message of conservation with unique insight into the UAE’s natural environment and history,” said Ghanim Al Hajeri, director General of the Zoo.

“The career opportunities are endless – whether in animal care, tourism or administrative roles – and UAE National employees act as ambassadors for our nation, allowing visitors to experience our culture from a different perspective.”

Honing skills of each unique contributor corresponds with Plan Abu Dhabi 2030 which sets out a program “to lay the foundations for a socially cohesive and economically sustainable community that preserves the Emirate’s unique cultural heritage,” Mariam Al Shamsi, Director Human Resources and Strategy said in a recent statement.

Hey, if it gets kids off the couch and moving their feet in nature, that’s fine by us.

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As though arriving in Dubai for the first time with nothing but $272 in his pocket, the Pakistani-Canadian entrepreneur will first get a job as a scrap collector and then work his way up from there. He will live with eight or ten other men in squalid conditions – like so many do in Dubai – and document the entire process with a three-person film crew. 

Inspired by a young Pakistani scrap collector he met, Mirza wants to see how far he can stretch his initial sum of money in order to highlight opportunities for the poor.

Once he gets a leg up as a scrap collector, he intends to find other jobs either online or using newspaper classifieds. He will exchange his services for room and board, if he can.

He will then distribute the DVD that Mirza Productions will generate over the 33 day ordeal for free. He will also pass out 100 survival kits to some of the most enterprising people he meets along the way, which will include mobile phone top ups and a Nol card that provides a few rides on Dubai public transportation.

This kit will also include tips for eating well and suggest places for  purchasing nourishing food.

Mirza seems to suggest that with a touch of pluck and ingenuity, even the most uneducated person on the street can improve their lot. And it’s an interesting experiment.

But it’s also borderline insulting. With his camera crew and pedigree, employers won’t  treat him with the same disdain that many foreign workers experience in the Emirate and he already has “reached the top” if living in a giant skyscraper is one’s definition of the high life.

He does acknowledge this, but claims that his project is about demonstrating to Dubai’s shadow people that it is possible to get somewhere from nowhere. In theory at least.

“The idea is to bounce back in 33 days, not to make millions but be stable,” Mr Mirza told The National. “Let’s see what Dubai has to offer.”

We’re kind of hoping Dubai has a nice big serving of humble pie on the menu.

Image of Burj Khalifa, Shutterstock

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By some accounts this is good. Quality of life has improved for some people, the place is modernizing. But this new world order has not only created environmental hazards such as poor waste and water management, it has also dealt cinema the death knell. And one man is valiantly trying to forestall its complete demise.Brownbook Magazine recently interviewed Hassan Belkady, the owner of the legendary ABC Cinema on Boulevard Mohamed V.

Belkady’s family took possession of the theater once a French ban in the 1950s, which prohibited Moroccans from owning movie theaters, was lifted and King Mohamed V returned from exile.

It was once a bustling place that shone during cinema’s golden age. From Black and White classics to local films, ABC Cinema was at the cutting edge of the moving image industry.

When Belkady’s father fell ill in the 1980s, there was no question but that he would take over. A self-confessed “Cinephile,” the dentist has plied his own money into this and three other cinemas to keep the industry alive.

He spent a decade slowly renovating each building so that they would have the comforts of a mega cineplex but the ambience of the original red curtain days when people dressed in their best clothes to see a new flick.

ABC Cinema continues to offer the best, including a weekly art house film put on with help from the French Cultural Institute, but Belkady admits that the tradition itself has suffered.

“Also, every year we lose many movie theatres here in Morocco,’ he told Brownbook Magazine. ‘This year, there are only about 30 theatres left and they suffer from a bad reputation for safety and cleanliness.’

While his theaters are clean and equipped with modern sound and seating, keeping people interested in the cinematic experience amid the new You Tube, iPad reality, where it’s easier and cheaper to watch movies on a tiny screen, is a challenge.

Belkady says that despite all the obstacles, he is ready to keep fighting.

:: Brownbook Magazine

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But out of such a place emerged a fascinating culture. The ethnic Tajiks and their simple, tribal way of life are not well known to the outside world, however, something that Chinese photographer XinZhao Li sought to change.

In order to do justice to a community that has lived in relative obscurity, it’s so important to become fully acquainted with their customs. Nothing is more disrespectful than an artist or photographer who does “drive-by” shooting without bothering to get to the know the people they are photographing.

Clearly this was not how Li approached her subject.

In addition to being beautifully-composed images with spectacular detail, they are sensitive and warm, and portray a kind of vitality that is not easy to capture on digital film.

Located on the historic Silk Road, Tashkurgan is now a market town. People travel there to purchase sheep and wool and woolen products, including carpets, and orchards circle the county’s circumference.

The Tajiks in this region speak Sarikoli and have very little access to the luxuries we take for granted: medical facilities are sparse, and electricity and communication networks are erratic.

Li’s images unveil the extraordinary resilience of the people who continue to eke out a life in this high desert environment. They are pictured with tools, a small beat up vehicle, donkeys, pets and in intimate settings rarely afforded to outsiders.

Called Through The Unknown Tashkurgan, this remarkable photographic series was captured with a Hasselblad large-format digital camera and Profoto lighting.

Read what the artist says about her experience living among the Tajiks:

In Tashkurgan, due to the cold weather, lack of nutrients and altitude sickness, I was ill half the time and was then unable to undertake the photographic mission.I have witnessed childbirth, tribal marriages, unforeseen sickness, snow storm, avalanche, gazing into the stars whilst bathing in mysterious hot-springs, discovered Saussurea – a rare and precious Chinese herb, saving the lives of endangered animals, being placed under gun points as a spy suspect, car accidents, punctured tires, spending chilly nights alone in road side warehouses in the midst of getting lost driving at the country’s border – a woman’s nightmare scenario for being raped, torn ligaments of my swollen ankles, and putting myself relentlessly into all kinds of joyful and stressful situations.

Visit XinZhao Li’s profile on See Me for more beautiful images of the Tajiks of Taskurgan.

Via Feature Shoot

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A community project in Qatar explores local folktales and what they can teach us about nature in the Middle East

Whilst every corner of the world has a strong storytelling tradition, the Middle East is blessed with its own unique strand of folktales exploring nature. Water scarcity, rain and drought feature heavily due to the hot and arid climes of the region. A new community education/outreach project with the Qatar Heritage and Identity Center has partnered folklorists, scholars, and storytellers with local Qatari youth to encourage oral storytelling, and also help train them to collect and document this heritage.

One Qatari folktale has already been transformed into an animated film called ‘Rain’, which will be screened at the Doha Tribeca Film Festival this November.

“Our film ‘Rain’ is based on an oral folktale called ‘Amtir Ya Matar,’ which is about a traveler stranded in the desert and rescued by a tribe of Bedouins who then offer him hospitality while he recovers,” explains Autumn Eve Watts who is one of the organisers of the initiative.

“However, discovering that the traveler’s name is Matar [which means rain in Arabic], they beg him to bring rain to their drought-parched land. Matar repeatedly tries to explain to them that only God do this, but the misunderstanding persists. He eventually turns to prayer for help, and Allah answers his prayer by bringing rain to the land. The moral lesson of the folktale involves miscommunication, and the mistaken belief that man can control all aspects of the natural world.”

Indeed at the heart of many Qatari folktales are the limitedness of man in the face of nature – something which the modern world could do with remembering. We can’t conquer nature and be its master. Our lives and future survival is based on caring for the environment and allowing it to remain in equilibrium so that we can live our lives in comfort and peace.

One of the mentors of the folktale project is Dr. Kaltham Al-Ghanem, a Qatari anthropologist who has done a lot of research on culture and the environment and has a forthcoming book on this subject. ‘Rain’ along with other Qatari folktales will be published in a book in their original dialect as well as in English.

Autumn Eve Watts, who is the screenwriter of the ‘Rain’ film, also remarked that the group was meeting with the COP18 UN Global Climate Change Conference organizers to plan a cultural program for the conference that would involve Qatari storytellers sharing tales related to heritage and environment. So, I guess we can expect to hear more from them in the future!

:: Qatari Folktales Facebook page

For more on culture and the environment see:

Lebanon’s Trash Theatre and the True Cost of Rubbish (INTERVIEW)

Recycle Art Workshops @Darb1718

Ask Ali: The UAE’s Very Own Hipster Environment Show

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Eid began Friday and will end Monday, the last day of the Hajj. When traveling in Palestinian cities, I have always marveled at the street art communities make to welcome pilgrims home.

Eid al-Adha is also known as the Holiday of Sacrifice, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the Major Festival, the Greater Eid and Bakrid.

Fires, ritual animal slaughter (and sharing that meat with the poor), and feasts are among the cherished celebratory customs.

There has been much debate about the role of meat in the celebration. In 2011, Jordanian Princess Alia spoke about the importance of humane animal slaughter when celebrating Eid al-Adha.

There is a growing awareness that customs in some areas of the Middle East, such as making bonfires by burning trash and tires, can harm the environment. Dr. Hammoud al-Awdi, a sociologist at Sanaa University in Yemen, recently told Al-Shorfa:

“This custom [burning trash] might harm the environment. But it comes from the countryside, where children would collect firewood and place it in piles to burn on the eve of Eid.”

Many Muslims around the world are proactively engaging the ancient traditions in new ways, seeking to revive more sustainable, traditional practices and create new environmentally conscious ways to celebrate.

For many families in the Middle East, this year’s holiday has been marked by fear and bloodshed. In Syria, innocent civilians were killed near a children’s playground in Daf al-Shok, a Sunni residential neighborhood in southern Damascus. And al-Awdi said that public fear is also tangible in Yemen’s capital.

To celebrate, he said people stroll in the city’s gardens, or take quick trips, but are careful to return home before dark.

Read more about Muslim holidays:

Eid Al-Adha: The Muslim Festival of Meat?

Jordan’s Princess Alia Calls for Humane Animal Slaughter Ahead of Eid al-Adha

7 Tips for a Sustainable Eid-ul-Adha Festival

Image of pilgrims in Mecca via AHMAD FAIZAL YAHYA, Shutterstock 

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Melilla is a curious place at the tip of North Africa that proves people with different cultural and religious backgrounds can get along perfectly well. One of two Spanish enclaves in Morocco, this multicultural city on the Mediterranean Sea hosts a melting pot of 70,000 Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims, who don’t fight each other, don’t blow stuff up and definitely don’t paste nasty posters on the walls.

Despite a long past of many conquests and bloody wars between fearsome Moors and Spanish forces, today each culture’s habits meshes in with the others, forming a distinctive group of peace-loving Melitanos.

Since being in Spain, I’m sure I’ve gained at least 10 pounds, and nine of them came from here.

Everything is just so good. Although the vast majority of Melitanos work for the state, and there is no industry here aside from a trash incinerator (recyclables are shipped to mainland Spain) and a desalination plant, most people live well.

Coffee, some grown locally, and churros or toast with olive oil are breakfast standards. Berber tea too. Lunch, at 2pm or so, is when most people have their main meal, and that carries them through their midday siesta and nightime work.

Dinner with friends at any one of the many restaurants in the industrial area, downtown, or in the old city is an elaborate affair of beer or wine served with plate after plate of shrimp, lobster, white fish, calamari, lamb, pork, ham, cheese and much more. It would take a month just to research the many kinds of dishes served and their socio-cultural roots.

A fading tradition on the Iberian peninsula now, every single establishment (except for the Chinese restaurants) serve free tapas with every beverage ordered, ensuring the consumption of more calories than one person ought to eat in a day, never mind one meal, and at the end of it all, a free bottle of some kind of liquor appears on the table.

The old city, a restored fortress that rises above the sea, is organized into several different districts that trace the various occupations since the 14th century. Locals are fond of pointing out that Spain claimed this territory nearly two hundred years before North America was a reflection in the Mayflower’s sail, in order to show off its long and illustrious history.

I’m staying at the Hotel Nacional, the cheapest in town with an internet connection, which is owned by a Jewish family. The Sephardic community has contributed a great deal to Melilla’s intellectual development and worship in no fewer than 12 synagogues; they get along well with the Arabs, whose ancestors are credited with turning what is now a free, autonomous port into a major landmark on the sea trade map.

Culture converges in many interesting ways. Recently at the Casa Juanito restaurant in the city’s industrial neighborhood, I shared drinks with two Moroccan grandfathers who came over from neighboring Nador. They have adopted European gastronomy, although they are still pious people who honor their religious obligations during Ramadan and other holy times.

Likewise, there are many Spanish locals who have converted to Islam. Downtown, at the Plaza de Culturas at the foot of Melilla Vieja, a shop called Arte Arabe is a craft and clothing store that sells Moroccan wares. It is run by a reticent Spanish Muslim woman who would not allow me to take her photograph.

Another girl, a qualified Muslim physiotherapist, explained that even though there is a Facebook group of people who claim to want to wrest Melilla back from Spain, they aren’t locals. Everyone gets along here and they want to keep it that way.

So, while political leaders and mainstream newspapers fan the fires of occasional mistrust between different religious groups, some people choose to ignore it all and enjoy life. Maybe it’s a bit like Pleasantville, and there are problems here as everywhere, but I’ve enjoyed this gentle reprieve from the rhetoric of hatred.

If you are intrigued and want to visit this fascinating city on the edge of the Mediterranean, take a ferry from Malaga on the south coast of Spain if you’re in Europe, or a train from Fez. Flights are available of course, but we’d be reneging our responsibility as green-minded travelers if we encouraged you to take one.

Images by Tafline Laylin

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Steaming, not smoking

The National interviewed Gulf-based Leila Ostovar, the Marketing Director of Protract, which is the regional distributor of “healthy” shisha stones. Ostovar explains how Shiazo Steam Stone Shisha works:

“It’s a steam hookah that replaces tobacco leaves with 100 per cent natural stones,” she told the paper.

“People can use them in exactly the same way they would a normal shisha, except when heat is applied to the hookah-head containing the stones, the aroma fluids within them reach their boiling point and vaporise into a thick, flavourful steam instead of tobacco smoke,” she added.

Since users ingest no tobacco or sugar, Ostovar claims this is a far healthier way to enjoy the shisha experience, adding that a regular user, blindfolded, would not be able to distinguish between the stones or tar and nicotine-laced shisha. The steam doesn’t burn. Nor does it make hair and clothes stink.

The company reiterates this message and compares shiazo steam stones to e-cigarettes.

“Shiazo does not generate smoke, because smoke is defined as a combustion product of organic substances with a mixture of solid particles and air. Shiazo is also free of nicotine. By using Shiazo with an electronic charcoal instead of real charcoal also no PAH, heavy metals or carbon monoxide occurs either.”

E-hookahs

Believe it or not, there’s an entire forum devoted to e-cigs and what some people are now calling e-hookahs. A few members of this subculture went back and forth about which is better: e-cigs or e-hookahs.

“well i see e-cigs more of a personal vaporizer (pv) that you just have to yourself. i see hookahs meant to be enjoyed in a social gathering. social vaporizer (sv)? haha. also hookahs have the vapor passing thru water to cool it down. e-cig’s dont do that [sic],” wrote “ECF veteran” vi3tl2ice.

Hmm. Interesting choice of language: social vaporizer. I can’t help that it reminds me of the vapoorizer, a version of which an Israeli inventor actually developed!

In any case, what do the experts have to say about sucking down the steam of aromatic rocks?

The National talked to Shabash K from the Prime Healthcare Group in Dubai, who is not worried about people filling up their lungs with the steam from aromatic stones.

“Steam as such will not cause any problem; it humidifies the airways and liquefies phlegm in your lungs allowing you to spit it out,” the pulmonologist told the paper. “Unlike tobacco, steam won’t cause problems in terms of burning the pulmonary area.”

There are fundamental differences in how e-cigs and steam stones are made and function, but it’s too soon to give this new product the green light. After the fervor of “healthy cigarettes” swept some smokers off their habitual feet, studies emerged that e-cigarettes aren’t as innocuous as they first appeared.

:: The National

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