Arab Design Now

The publication features works by the 74 exhibiting designers in the exhibition Arab Design Now, which was the headline exhibition for the inaugural Design Doha Biennale in 2024.

Underpinning many of the pieces in the show is an iterative and research-based process. For this reason, a selection of these dialogues have been transcribed and included in the publication in the form of monologues, providing important context to the works on display, and revealing the layers and nuances behind them.

The constellation of works presented at Arab Design Now showcase the diversity of the region, but also serves to chart the commonalities and networks that tie us together as designers from the Arab World. This celestial metaphor, which has prevailed in ancient Arab cultures over centuries, provides a reading of the Arab World in which the idea of collective identity transcends simplistic ethnic or geographic boundaries, and instead relies on alternative approaches to mapping and defining commonalities.