A multi-disciplinary showcase of UAE-based creative talent, The UAE Designer Exhibition is a curated feature situated at the heart of Downtown Design fair, offering early-career designers a platform for visibility and commercial opportunity.

With the aim of providing a platform for the local creative community, the UAE Designer Exhibition primarily focuses on presenting emerging talent and young practitioners with opportunities to break into the region’s market to launch new works, gain visibility, face audience feedback for further development and generate potential commercial leads and avenues for collaborations.

Announced as the 2024 guest curator, Omar Al Gurg urges UAE-based creatives to consider comfort, convenience and functionality in the context of their work and the potential impact their designs can have on homes, communities, or public spaces.

This exhibition seeks to highlight designers passionate about creating emotionally resonant objects welcoming design pieces that are tactile, physically comforting, nostalgic with quality and contemporary design at the centre.

Encouraging designers and studios to explore materiality and form and aiming to evoke thought and feeling in the end user, the submitted works should be durable, feasible to produce, and influenced by cultural and regional contexts, and in fitting with the Downtown Design’s mandate of high-quality and contemporary design.

Contributing to building a diverse local creative scene, designers, makers, and independent studios based in the UAE and producing work locally can apply to participate in the 5th iteration of the UAE Designer Exhibition and have their works showcased to a vast audience of B2C and B2C visitors, 6-9 November.

Deadline for submissions: 1 August 2024

Criteria:

    • Designers must reside, operate and preferably produce works in the UAE
    • This exhibition is targeting an early-career generation of creatives with emerging or SME practices, or who are not represented by a gallery or other
    • Applicants can be from different cultural/geographical backgrounds and diverse or design disciplines
    • Supporting local producers or sourcing materials produced in the UAE
    • Objects presented need to be at prototype phase already and past the sketching / 3D renders phase
    • Works submitted preferably should not have been exhibited before
    • Proposals must contribute to the local supply chain
    • Designing responsibly; considering environmental, social impact and emotional impact
    • Innovating; proposing design concepts that disrupt traditional solutions
    • Contextually; containing cultural references of historical or contemporary narratives, while maintaining contemporary design aesthetics
    • Comfort, Convenience and Functionality; functional objects

Submission material:

    • A minimum of 5 digital files. Digital files should be named and show the submission with real life identical high-resolution renderings – physical models, 3D’s, architectural drawings and/or sketches are encouraged
    • A preferred layout on how the project will be exhibited
    • A description text describing the concept of the design (max. 300 words)
    • Professional biography (max. 300 words)

*All images must be high quality and a maximum of 1MB. Please follow submission form guidelines.