Crafting Futures: Design Recency in partnership with year of culture Morocco 2024

إقامة دوحة التصميم قطر - المغرب: حِرف تصميم المُستقبل

تبادل ثقافي في التصميم

دوحة التصميم

يناير - أكتوبر 2024

بالتعاون مع العام الثقافي قطر-المغرب 2024

يحتفل برنامج إقامة دوحة التصميم بالترابط والتقاطعات بين ممارسات الحرف المعاصرة والتصميم المبتكر من خلال إقامة بين المصممين والصناع والحرفيين الدوليين والقطريين. وستتجلى الإقامة خلال دوحة التصميم من خلال إقامة بحثية للمصممين في ليوان في الدوحة، قطر. وخلال إقامة ليوان، سيستضيف المصممون استوديوهات مفتوحة ومحادثات وورش عمل عملية وعروض صحفية، بينما يبحثون أيضًا في سياقات التصميم والحرف والمواد في قطر.

سيعمل برنامج إقامة دوحة التصميم بالتعاون مع عام الثقافة على دمج الإقامة المتعلقة بالتصميم في برنامج واحد وربط النتيجة بمتاجر الهدايا في IN-Q. يسمح البرنامج للمصممين الموهوبين من قطر بالانغماس في الثقافات الغنية وممارسات الحرف التقليدية.

هيكل البرنامج

This project is divided into 3 distinct phases that will run concurrently and will be tied to the Design Doha and YOC calendar of events and will necessitate the collaboration between key stakeholders across the Creative Hub and QM and design and craft colleagues and organizations in Morocco. The project includes:

Phase 01:

Residency among Moroccan and Qatar designers:

Throughout 2024, the main focus of the project will be on the exchanges of idea, practices, crafts and design innovation among the selected Moroccan and Qatari designers. This phase will include a site visit of the Qatari designers to Morocco in January 24 and the visit of the Moroccan designers to Qatar in February 2024.

Phase 02:

Development stage of the works for Designers of Qatar/Morocco:

Between June-November, the designers will work to create objects related to their own practices and processes of making, specifically their engagement with design and crafts, and also that demonstrate the shared knowledge and exchange gained through the Residency. These works will be displayed in the exhibition taking place in Qatar in November 2024.

Phase 03:

Curatorial and exhibition:

In November 2024, the exhibition will present the work and also evidence of the impact of the residency, as well as the actual making of the objects through engagement with craft traditions and contemporary practices. To achieve this, the exhibition and each work will be well contextualised in MIA with supporting photographs, video, and text materials, making it a space where visitors can view objects and gain insights into the making processes employed.

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Meet the Designers

Designers of Qatar

Abdulrahman Al Muftah

Abdulrahman Al Muftah is a maker and designer whose approach to his multi-media practices are impelled and guided by his research interests and methods. Al Muftah has a deep commitment to the materials (scents, soil, fabric) of Qatar and the region and this body of research underpins much of the work he creates.

Majdulin Nassrallah

Majdulin Nasr Allah’s work holds incredible power through its quiet contemplations on political and social injustices of our times, and often specifically those enacted upon Palestine and Palestinian people. Nasr Allah takes forms, motifs, scents, and materials that hold and evoke Palestine and that reality in its fullest poetic, nostalgic, brutal, and unjust forms, and she creates imbues them within everyday objects for our lives and homes to ensure we never forget.

Nada Elkharashi

Nada Elkharashi is a multi-media product designer whose work speculates about the relationship of design and the public’s who engage with the objects produced in relation to some of the largest societal questions of our time, such as water scarcity, social relations and fabrics, and climate justice.

Reema Abu Hassan

Reema Abu Hassan founded the incredibly successful “Craft Encounter” company, the mission of which is to literally put clay and an ability to work with the earth and to make within the reach of all. Her own work is deeply committed to clay as an element of culture and through which cross-cultural dialogue, knowledge and understanding can be gained.

Designers of Morocco

Amine El Gotaibi

Amine El Gotaibi is an African maker and artist of the MENA region whose work is deeply connected to the land of the region, as well as the materials, mediums and traditional craft communities of Morocco. El Gotaibi collaborates with communities of makers and thinkers to create environmentally-scaled works that comment on political and social realities through materials as wool, rammed earth, metals and light.

Sara Ouhaddou

Sara Ouhaddou is a designer and artist whose practice is grounded in research, which often explores questions around the relationship of various forms of making to history, historical contexts and realities, and the social fabric of specific cultures and communities. Ouhaddou partners with artisans to create new modes of working with traditional craft to create collaborations across her work and those of craft communities in Morocco and the region.

Amine Asselman

Amine Asselman’s work is dedicated to the centuries old Moroccan craft tradition zelige hand-cut tiles and to Islamic pattern and visual language within Morocco and across the Mediterranean, of which he has a PhD. Asselman works with zelige artisans within Morocco to create new forms and modes of creating zelige based works for our contemporary times, as a way to sustain and innovate within this traditional craft.

Bouchra Boudoua

Bouchra Boudoua is a ceramic designer whose work engages with the long history of Moroccan clay crafts and forms and within this context she experiments with glazes, designs, and pattern that often refer to the Amazigh traditions and visual languages.

Hamza Kadiri

Hamza Kadiri is a renowned maker who is very much working within the long lineage of traditional wood artisans and craftspeople within Morocco. This tradition is the backdrop to his practice, which has emerged as a leading one in the region, and globally, for the creation of functional, often room scale, objects through hand crafted wood and today he is exploring and moving into both monumental and conceptual approaches to this craft and medium.

About the curator

Gwen Farrelly

Gwen Farrelly is Curator for Design Doha Residency 2024 Qatar | Morocco: Crafting Design Futures. She also serves as the Connect & Be Connected Lead for internationalisation and partnerships at Ireland’s National College of Art and Design (NCAD). And, she is an art historian, independent researcher and a consultant for global strategic development in cultural and higher education organisations.

Curator Statement

Design Doha Residency Qatar | Morocco: Crafting Design Futures programme explores connectivity and intersections of contemporary craft practices and innovative design through an exchange among makers (designers, artists, craftspeople) of Morocco and Qatar. As such, Crafting Design Futures represents a deep commitment to the sustenance and support of craft and heritage of Qatar and Morocco, as well as contemporary practices of design, fine arts, and making more broadly.

Based in Qatar, the designers Reema Abu Hassan, Majdulin Nassrallah, Abdulrahman Al Muftah, and Nada Elkharashi are participating in the Exchange and bringing their practices that engage with ceramic traditions and contemporary forms, installation and spatial interventions, pigment and natural materials, and upcycling into dialogue with peers and contexts in Qatar and Morocco to develop new work.

While in Morocco, Amine Asselman, Amine El Gotaibi, Sara Ouhaddou, Bouchra Boudoua, and Hamza Kadiri’s practices reflect all forms of making from textiles, to wood craftsmanship, to installation work with ceramic and glass, and pottery. Through their practices they sustain collaborations with artisan communities, narratives, and contemporary practices and they will bring this approach towards the Residency programme and their time in Qatar.

Each of these selected makers of Morocco and Qatar all share a deep commitment to, and value for, sustaining the languages, communities, narratives, traditions, typologies, and objects of craft within their respective contexts and through their own practices as designers and/or artists. In bringing these designers, artists and craftspeople together, Crafting Design Futures fosters a rich cross-cultural dialogue across makers in both environments and towards innovation, new objects and a greater awareness of contemporary craft practices within design contexts.