Echoes of Heritage: Crafting Design Futures Residency

Design Doha, in collaboration with the Years of Culture initiative, presented the Crafting Design Futures Residency Program with a two-day celebration of design, culture, and craftsmanship and culminated in the Crafting Design Futures exhibition. The exhibition was hosted at the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) Education Center and Clay Encounters, showcasing the dynamic interplay of tradition and modernity.

Aimed at fostering collaboration and cultural exchange, the residency brought together designers and artisans from Qatar and Morocco, offering a platform for creativity, dialogue, and innovation. The programme was part of the Qatar-Morocco 2024 Year of Culture, a broader initiative promoting cross-cultural understanding through art, design, and heritage.

Central to the programme were two compelling panel discussions hosted at the MIA Education Center on the first day. These were the Material Narratives and Crafted Connections, that featured multidisciplinary designer Amine El Gotaibi, sustainability advocate Nada El Kharashi, and designers Sara Ouhaddou and Abdulrahman Al Muftah. Together, they explored how traditional craftsmanship and cultural narratives shape contemporary design practices.

Wood, Ceramics, and Memory: Shaping Heritage Through Material and Culture brought craftsmen and designers like Hamza Kadiri, Majdulin Nasr Allah, Reema Abu Hassan, and Bouchra into conversation. This session delved into the intersection of materials and memory, offering insights into the transformative power of heritage.

On the next day, interactive workshops allowed participants to engage directly with traditional crafts. These included Design and Embroider Your Own Motifs, led by Majdulin Nasrallah at the MIA Education Center, which highlighted the intricacies of Palestinian Tatreez embroidery.

A Cultural Design Exchange at Clay Encounters introduced participants to Moroccan Zellige design, guided by Amine Asselman and Reema Abu Hassan. These workshops underscored the program’s mission to preserve traditional techniques while adapting them to modern contexts.

The culmination of the residency was the Crafting Design Futures exhibition, curated by Gwen Farrelly, which runs from December 1-30, 2024, at the MIA. The exhibition featured nine innovative works by Qatari and Moroccan designers, emphasizing the synergy of cultural heritage and contemporary artistry.

The Exhibition

Crystalline by Amine Asselman

The Crafting Design Futures exhibition showcased a remarkable confluence of traditional craftsmanship and contemporary design.

Crystalline by Amine Asselman boldly reimagined Moroccan Zellige, using 20,000 terracotta tiles to create non-traditional, three-dimensional forms that transcend expectations of the craft. For this work, Asselman created each of these tiles with different textures on its surfaces creating different permutations and combinations from these blocks making the entire installation, a beautiful comiplation of texture, ingenuity, architecture and like a game of Lego or block making.

“I work a lot on geometry but for this exhibition, I wanted to explore the 3D nature of the geometric forms. I created one shape that can be recreated in infinity to create imaginary landscapes in clay. This work also touches on the effect of minerals on clay which gives rise to diffeent textures and also touches on the influence of Al Hambra and its red towers,” explains Amine Asselman.

Nada Elkharashi’s 66km combined Moroccan silk textiles and LED bulbs atop Qatari limestone, symbolising resource scarcity solutions inspired by Morocco’s environment.

Majdulin Nasr Allah’s Dis-orient(al) Rug

This work by Majdulin Nasrallah, an interdisciplinary designer holding a Master of Fine Arts in Design and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUarts Qatar), merged Palestinian Tatreez motifs and Moroccan wool in a hand-knotted rug, juxtaposing architectural symbols of colonial oppression with traditional design.

Majdulin tells us about the research that she was involved in for the last year. “My research was about Pthe landscape in Palestine as well as other places of occupation, and how it can be interrupted by colonial occupation. The idea of incorporating traditional Moroccon weaving by women in Morocco and traditional Palestinian Tatreez, traditional crossstitch embroidery of Palestine came from these studies.”

Traditionally the Palestinian embroidery would borrow from the natural surroundings, so flowers, olive trees were elements that would always find place within the textile industry. But here in Majdulin Nasr’s work, along with the natural motifs, we find the presence of motifs that represent the Apartheid walls, the settlements and watch towers.

“This is to show how the architecture of occupation affects the daily lives of the people who live there, and that represents the psycological effect of warfare,” she says,”This work is a reflection of the effect of checkpoints, barriers, control towers that make life in the occupied zones much more complicated and intense as these become the natural setting as opposed to the natural beauty of the country before the occupation.”

Reema Abu Hassan’s Zellige Library

This work of clay by Qatar-based ceramist, Reema Abu Hassan has transformed Morocco’s Zellige tile tradition into a meditative landscape using ceramics, sand, and wood, bridging Qatari and Moroccan crafting practices. Reema is an interdisciplinary designer with a Masters of Fine Arts from VCUarts Qatar, and the founding director of the Clay Encounters Ceramics Design Studio at The Pearl in Qatar.

“I was very inspired by Bushra and Amine’s use of natural clay in their work and I wanted to bring a little bit of that into my work. I went into the Qatari desert to source local clay. I was also inspired by the individual pieces of Zellige clay, the stories, textures and meanings behind each of those tiles, which we saw in Casablanca as part of the residency programme. I used digital technology to produce the pieces, because I wanted to merge the analog motif mode of making with the digital tools that are available. I worked with a local factory to produce these pieces. I have a bench alongside my work to bring in a meditative apprach to design, akin to my feeling when I was sitting on the steps and looking at the Casablance mosques with its different surfaces and textures,” says Reema Abu Hassan about the work behind her exhibit.

“With this residency, I could see how different ceramists work and I used this knowledge and reapplied it within our culture and context here in Qatar,” she says about her takeaway from the residency programme.

Building Bridges through Design 

Arrous Anzar by Paris-based Sara Ouhaddou (Morocco) revives Moroccan glassblowing, inspired by Islamic glass vessels she first encountered at the Museum of Islamic Art. Through a collaboration with artisans, Sara reintroduces a forgotten craft to Morocco’s crafting traditions. Made up of 30 glass vessels, the piece is accompanied by items from MIA’s collection like those that originally inspired Sara to pursue this quest.

Amine El Gotaibi’s Al-Dohaiyat: A Labyrinth of Enlightenment, an interactive earthen maze, celebrated Doha’s educational legacy while reflecting Morocco’s city walls’ strength and stability.

His work is inspired by time spent at Liwan Design Studios & Labs, Amine El Gotaibi honours Qatar’s female education history with an interactive installation of earth and wool, drawing parallels with Morocco’s protective city walls.

TRIBU by Bouchra Boudoua features three monumental clay objects inspired by Amazigh heritage. The totemic forms tell stories connected to Morocco’s earth and cultural identity.

Qatari-designer and multi-discplinary artist and VCUarts Qatar alumni, Abdulrahman Al Muftah’s Tornado Shelves, is hand-carved from wood and it mimicks the swirling movement of sand in Qatar and Morocco. Tornado Shelves evoke the dynamic movement of sandstorms in Qatar and Morocco. The hand-carved wood reflects Abdulrahman’s passion for natural heritage and this work is in collaboration with Casablanca-based designer Hamza Kadiri.

Resilience in Destruction by Hamza Kadiri (Morocco) symbolises global tragedies through materials: charcoal for destruction, bronze for resilience, and wood for hope, blending craftsmanship with conceptual storytelling.Hamza combines charcoal, bronze, and wood, and through this work he embodies the global struggles of destruction and the enduring hope for freedom.

Together, these works epitomised the synergy of tradition and modernity, inspiring a renewed appreciation for cultural legacies in contemporary design.

Beyond the Exhibition

The programme extended its impact through a series of public workshops hosted at Liwan Design Studios & Labs. Exclusive merchandise inspired by the cultural exchange was also made available at the MIA shop, furthering the legacy of this initiative.

Fahad Al Obaidly, Acting Director of Design Doha, emphasised the program’s significance: “Connections like those forged during the Crafting Design Futures program are the foundation of a shared creative future. These cross-border partnerships preserve heritage while inspiring unity, creativity, and mutual understanding that will resonate for generations.”

Curator Gwen Farrelly echoed this sentiment, highlighting the relevance of cultural traditions in modern design: “This exhibition reflects the incredible synergy between traditional craftsmanship and contemporary design, honoring heritage while embracing innovation.”

The Crafting Design Futures Residency Program exemplified the ethos of the Qatar Museum’s Years of Culture initiative— building bridges through art, design, and shared heritage. By fostering collaboration and celebrating creativity, the programme not only preserved traditional craftsmanship but also inspired a collective vision for the future, rooted in cultural exchange and mutual respect.