Rana Beiruti

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.

"Edited by Rana Beiruti, who curated Arab Design Now with such astonishing insight and expertise, this book is much more than a record of the exhibition. With profiles of 74 designers in all disciplines, it is an invaluable overview of the creativity of the MENA region at this moment in history. With its “monologues” by 11 of these designers, it is a rare opportunity to explore in depth the thinking and practice of outstanding talents. And with its striking photography, it is a feast for the eyes."

- HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Foreward

"...while the term ‘survey’ may imply a comprehensive or data-driven approach to collecting and mapping contemporary design from the Arab world, the exhibition should instead be considered a selective snapshot of design as it relates to the pertinent issues that impact our region today. It is built upon a series of dialogues I conducted with designers over several months, and interrogates themes extracted from these encounters that are urgent and worthy of introspection: geography and land politics, architecture and the evolution of our urban spaces, material and visual sensibilities, society and collective culture, heritage and identity, and language."

- Rana Beiruti, Curatorial Essay

"This is the first major museum exhibition to look at design in the Arab World. What it reveals is astonishing in its breadth and ambition. All across the region, despite pervasive challenges of economic and political instability, designers are drawing deeply on local resources of craft skill, abstract pattern, and spiritual belief, while also responding to the ever-changing currents of the international scene. The exhibition demonstrates without doubt that Arab design is world design, a vibrant context for creativity, fostering a level of collective achievement that is unsurpassed anywhere."

- Glenn Adamson, Introduction