Dubai event provides venue for creative minds to meet

Dubai: Creativity knows no limits, borders or age. This holds true especially for Dubai — a city known for making grand designs even more grand.

For four days beginning on Sunday, the first Design Days Dubai will provide a venue for the region's creative minds to meet. It will engage students, budding designers and professionals with experts in the design industry and 22 galleries from the region and around the world.

Design Days Dubai, the Middle East and South Asia's first fair dedicated to collectible and limited edition design, is organised in partnership with the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) and is an integral part of Art Week.

"We have workshops that are specifically made to build bridges between the different communities and the world of design," Cyril Zammit, fair director, told Gulf News.

Local materials

"It thus opens doors for the UAE's own design talent to meet and interact with international design experts and understand the newest trends," he added.

Besides giving a chance to hone local talents, the fair also aims to highlight the use of local materials for unique design pieces. "We have a Korean designer who is doing weaving with Emirati products. We have Brazilian designers working together with people from Dubai and building up some objects made of pieces found in Dubai," Zammit added. He said the need for high-end designs fair had been highlighted in 2007, but could only be realised this year.

"The appetite for high-end design in Dubai and the Gulf region, as demonstrated by the support to the inaugural Design Days Dubai, marks the maturing of the arts scene in the city. While internationally, high-end design concepts have established a definite niche for itself, Dubai is now breaking the mould with the new initiative," Zammit said.

Experimental work

The 22 galleries from 15 countries will present their collections at dedicated pavilions. Students from the College of Art, Architecture and Design at the American University of Sharjah, University of Art and Design, Lausanne, Switzerland, and Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar will also participate to showcase the experimental work of their emerging designers.

Free workshops and lectures with design giants Nada Debs, Rabih Al Hage and Li Edelkoort, to name a few, are open to the public but pre-registration is a must. The workshops will be held twice, in the morning and in the evening.