Memory is Core at Oman’s Award-Winning Pavilion at the LDB 2025

Marking its debut at the London Design Biennale 2025, the Sultanate of Oman presented a moving, immersive experience titled Memory Grid — a project that stood out not only for its aesthetic and conceptual rigour but also earned accolades, clinching one of the top honours at the London Design Biennale 2025: the Best Design Medal. This debut pavilion struck a chord with both audiences and the jury for its ability to transform a traditional material culture into a contemporary inquiry on digital memory and collective value.

Crafted by young designers comprising of Omani architect and designer Haitham Al Busafi and curated by the Zawraq Collective, Memory Grid draws on Oman’s enduring history of pottery—once a vessel for water and survival— and recasts it within the framework of the digital age, where data and memory have replaced water as our most precious resource.

At the heart of the installation is a reimagining of traditional Omani pottery. But instead of being stacked on dusty shelves or encased behind glass, the forms are rendered transparent and arranged in a glowing grid formation, evocative of data centers and digital archives. The result is a poetic meditation on what societies choose to preserve across generations — from life-sustaining water in the past to endlessly replicable data in the present.

The installation invites visitors not merely to observe but to contribute: audiences are encouraged to inscribe their own memories into the grid. This participatory aspect transforms the pavilion into a living archive—a metaphor for contemporary digital legacy, which is increasingly formed by networks of shared experiences rather than solitary acts.

“We really wanted this project to ask questions about how we choose to remember and preserve our heritage in an age where everything is shared online,” said Noor Al Mahruqi, co-founder of Zawraq Collective to a local newspaper.

“We don’t often consider where we’re actually sharing these memories and how they’re physically stored in data centres. What we tried to do with this exhibition is create a fictionalised data centre – one represented through elements of our Omani heritage.”

Recognition and Reflection

The clarity of vision and the experimental depth of the installation led to Oman receiving the Best Design Medal, a rare achievement for a debuting nation at the Biennale.

This design was elevated by Haitham Al Busafi’s design sensibility, which merges architectural thinking with virtual production and immersive technologies. Educated at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna under visionaries such as Zaha Hadid and Kazuyo Sejima, Haitham brings a refined balance of conceptual thought and futuristic execution to his work. His firm, Beyond.xyz, is based in Saudi Arabia and specializes in fusing technology with emotional storytelling.

“To come here for the first time and win the Best Design Medal is a real privilege and a moment of pride,” said Noor. The recognition not only celebrated design excellence but also spotlighted Oman’s emerging cultural voice on the global stage.

According to the designers, this pavilion took a year to make and was a result of an open call for Omani designers to propose an exhibition aligned with the collective’s curatorial vision of fusing “tradition, identity and contemporary life”.

Women-Led Curatorial Power

Equally remarkable is the curatorial team behind the pavilion. The Zawraq Collective, founded by Noor Al Mahruqi and Zaima Al Adawi, is a women-led initiative from Muscat, Oman, committed to nurturing the local artistic scene. Their curatorial voice challenged conventional boundaries and introduced global audiences to an Omani aesthetic that is both deeply rooted and forward-looking.

Their name — Zawraq, referring to a small Omani fishing boat, is symbolic of their mission: to carry local talent into uncharted international waters while staying grounded to cultural authenticity and resilience.

Cultural Diplomacy Through Design

The pavilion was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth of the Sultanate of Oman, signaling the nation’s growing commitment to positioning itself within international cultural conversations. Through exhibitions like this, the Ministry not only promotes Omani heritage but also fosters dialogues on how design can mediate between the traditional and the technological, the personal and the political.

By bringing a quiet, reflective installation into the often bustling world of design fairs, Oman has shown that power lies as much in stillness as in spectacle. Memory Grid is a clear reminder that memory — whether stored in clay or code — is central to how we define ourselves, our identities, and our futures.

In an age saturated with digital content, Oman’s Memory Grid is a clarion call to reflect on the value of memory itself. Through architecture and design, it bridges past and present, and in doing so, sets a benchmark for how national pavilions can both represent and provoke.