Held under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice Chairman, Dubai Culture & Arts Authority.
On the 26th of this month, Dubai lays its claim to being one of the great emerging design cities of the world, as the very first Dubai Design Week kicks off across the city.
Showcasing the best of contemporary design from both the Middle East and across the world, the inaugural Dubai Design Week aims to cement the city’s reputation as the design capital of the region, attracting professionals, aficionados and design curious visitors to the city for a six-day celebration of ground-breaking ideas across a raft of creative platforms, spanning public installations, architecture, product, industrial and graphic design.
Conceived and managed by the Art Dubai Group, Dubai Design Week is held in partnership with Dubai Design District (d3) and is supported by the Dubai Design & Fashion Council and the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture).
d3’s Chief Operating Officer, Mohammad Saeed Al Shehhi, says: “We are proud of our strategic partnerships with key local and global organisations across the design sector which collectively, aim to promote design in the region. d3, as a destination dedicated to design, is pleased to host the inaugural Dubai Design Week; it is our privilege to be able to share Dubai’s vision for the design scene with its many visitors and participants – a vision embodied by d3. Together with our partners, we aspire to enable both new and well established designers, as well as artists locally and regionally, to thrive and succeed.”
The first Dubai Design Week will seek to reflect the city’s enormous potential by offering a level field for designers and design programmes from everywhere and all over the city; residents and visitors are invited to explore, discover and interact with a diverse and convention-puncturing programme of exhibitions, installations and events, with the newly developed creative hub d3 at the heart of it.
Cyril Zammit, Director of Design at Art Dubai Group says: “Thanks to Dubai’s position as an international hub, the rich but under-acknowledged creative heritage of the emirate and the growing appreciation of the role of design in the modern city, Dubai Design Week has a unique opportunity to establish an inclusive landmark event that embraces and engages the imagination – in a way that the world’s traditional design centres, with their established reputations and structures, often cannot.”
In addition, Dubai Design Week will produce a programme of talks and workshops giving UAE based designers unique access to insights from some of the leading players in the regional and global design industry, through a series of engaging talks, panels and workshops that will take place in d3.
Nez Gebreel, CEO of the Dubai Design and Fashion Council comments: “The inaugural edition of Dubai Design Week will give us the opportunity to educate and support local talent, while working towards our commitment to raise the profile of Dubai as a key player on the global design scene. Design is an essential building block of innovation and a catalyst for change, and we look forward to six inspirational days filled with great work from all around the world and opportunities for creative collaboration and cultural exchange.”
Dubai Design Week centres on the third edition of Downtown Design to be held at d3, the region’s fastest-growing design trade fair, which will bring more than 90 designers from 24 countries to present their pioneering innovations in furniture, lighting, bathrooms, kitchens, textiles and accessories. The fair has also partnered with six of the world’s leading Design Weeks (Helsinki, Istanbul, San Francisco, Mexico, Beijing and Melbourne) to bring their emerging designers to Dubai, thereby helping make Dubai Design Week a place of global discovery.
Accompanying the fair will be a packed calendar of public events and a host of cornerstone initiatives that offer insights into Dubai’s own creative energy and shine a light on the most remarkable developments in design thinking worldwide.
To find out more information on any of the Dubai Design Week programmes, visitors should go to the Dubai Design Week website www.dubaidesignweek.ae
