Dubai Design Week’s Abwab project is series of six architecturally designed pavilions built within the walkways of Dubai Design District (d3) to showcase design from six countries within the MENASA region.
Dubai Design Week’s Abwab project is series of six architecturally designed pavilions built within the walkways of Dubai Design District (d3) to showcase design from six countries within the MENASA region.
Abwab's creative director, Rawan Kashkoush, discusses the 2015 theme of Games: The Element of Play in Culture; and offers a hint as to how this is being interpreted by the six participating countries of Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the UAE.
Games: The Element of Play in Culture is the theme for Abwab in 2015. Can you tell us how this evolved?
Investigating the concept of play, our theme very early on evolved into the title: Games: The Element of Play in Culture. As we uncovered the deeper relationships people had to games, the more we recognised the human need for play as a primary source for character building, forming interaction skills and imagination expansion.
Abwab’s designers are carrying this concept into the spaces in which games are played, into the sounds created by playtime and the materials required for best game-play. The installations vary from a larger-than-life interpretation of ‘Mother of 9’, entitled UM TS3, by the Saudi Arabian pavilion, to homage of a research book in Kuwait, which teaches of suffocation methods used to strengthen pearl diver’s lungs from Gulf seaside cultures.
Whether storytelling with the use of shadows and silkscreen, or structures reminiscent of the fragile structure of the house of cards, what Abwab will show are personal interpretations of universal experiences.
Can you expand a little more on why Dubai Design Week has launched Abwab?
The goal is create mobility in the region’s design industry; these designers have been creating works that are not being admired or critiqued by enough people. This is important if they are to be propelled forward in their careers.
The intermix of designers from the region in a single place for one week is unprecedented. They are generating collaborative works and this helps to experience the benefits of merging skills within teams for improved outcomes. Abwab is both a platform for collective advancement and a place to share visions. It is a collection of two-way doors.
How were the six curators chosen?
Recognised for their local leadership qualities, the curators each engage with their communities as representatives of their industries. They are almost entirely designers themselves, having garnered support from their networks through their roles as professors and public speakers, or for having curated multiple exhibits and research projects in the past, even having commenced their own design week.
Though there is plenty of design generated in the region, there are few who have understood the importance of working collectively to empower the industry, the selected curators of Abwab are above all, beacons of teamwork.
Image Credit: WTD Magazine
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