Touching on ideas of found object art, arte povera, and the readymade, “How to Be at Rest” is an exhibition of actual chairs from industrial neighborhoods like Satwa, Dubai; Mina Zayed, Abu Dhabi; and Khor Fakkan, Sharjah. These mostly South Asian working-class communities exist at the periphery of megalopolis skyscrapers and represent the areas where the city goes to get clothing made, furniture upholstered, and cars kitted out.
Ikea chair with car seat foam
Source: Dubai Design Week 2020
DUBAI DESIGN WEEK | UAE DESIGNER EXHIBITION
Whether you call it whimsy or hodgepodge, there’s a feeling of craft and uncanny that makes each piece of furniture totally unique and inspiring. Many of these chairs have started their lives elsewhere: in the office, at a school, in the dining room. In each one, you can see the hand of the craftsman—who is the same as the end-user. Most notably, every object does more with less, using simple materials found nearby. Leftover construction materials like cement, plywood street signs, and paint buckets feature prominently and signal towards UAE’s rapid growth. Together these chairs mark a celebration of vernacular design.
Office chair with cement paint bucket
Source: Dubai Design Week 2020
DUBAI DESIGN WEEK | UAE DESIGNER EXHIBITION
Office chair with cement paint bucket, detail
Source: Dubai Design Week 2020
DUBAI DESIGN WEEK | UAE DESIGNER EXHIBITION
These objects have everything that good design aspires to be: comfort, durability, a sense of play and improvisation, relevance, and an emphasis on function guiding form. Most importantly, there is a strong spirit of ecoconsciousness: the majority of the materials are recycled and anything that is broken can and will be restored and repurposed.
Street sign chair
Source: Dubai Design Week 2020
DUBAI DESIGN WEEK | UAE DESIGNER EXHIBITION
Street sign chair
Source: Dubai Design Week 2020
DUBAI DESIGN WEEK | UAE DESIGNER EXHIBITION
Dining chair with car seat beads and emoji pillow
Source: Dubai Design Week 2020
DUBAI DESIGN WEEK | UAE DESIGNER EXHIBITION
Dining chair with car seat beads and emoji pillow
Source: Dubai Design Week 2020
With the aim to support the local design community currently undergoing the repercussions of the ongoing pandemic, a new showcase titled UAE Designer Exhibition spotlights innovative works of 20 locally based creatives, a capsule exhibit of solo work and inter-disciplinary collaborations, the d3 Edit will reflect the diversity of the Dubai Design District (d3) creative community members and the inaugural d3 Architecture Festival 2020, in partnership with RIBA Gulf, features regional projects of 40 RIBA-chartered architectural practices.
Participants with works on display in the UAE Designer Exhibition include Yara Habib, Leen Kahaleh, Tanvi Malik, Dana Amro, Eman Shafiq, Abdhul Hazeeb HZB, Tamara Barrage, Rimsha Kidwai, Mohamed Rowaizak, Mohammed Alsuwaidi, Michael Rice and more.
Here are highlights of our favorite designs:
Christopher Joshua, How to Be at Rest
Dubai-based artist Christopher Joshua Benton presents How to Be at Rest, an archive of used chairs sourced from old neighborhoods in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah. Researched and collected over two years, the exhibition debuts at Dubai Design Week. Each chair is presently exactly as they were found with no changes or intervention by the artist.
Throughout the exhibition, viewers are encouraged to consider the humble chair as a conduit to talk about critical issues of power, class and aesthetic taste. What do these objects say about their maker and their surroundings? What can we learn from these objects? What can they teach us about sustainability?
(Explore the chairs in our gallery above)
“Most of these chairs were sourced just minutes away from where Dubai Design Week is being held. As we confront ever more pressing issues related to climate change, it is critical that we look for design solutions in new places,” says Benton.
Christopher Benton, How to Be at Rest, installation view
Rimsha Kidwai, Lost Traces, objects from the Desert
Kidwai’s work reflects on the migrational and transformative nature of people and the shifting sands covering up traces of human existence in the desert as the landscape moves. Depicted through an organic form with two materials residing together harmoniously without fusing with one another. Very low to the ground, the table surface has soft curves that accentuates the organic form and celebrates the bold and expressive use of two materials, one resting on the other and forming a single surface without morphing together.
Rimsha Kidwai work for UAE Designer Exhibition
Dana Aamro, Burqa
Inspired by Wegner’s lounge chair, the Burqa Chair by Dana Amro represents the Emirati cultural identity of the “Burqa” in a contemporary manner, distinguishing it from the classic design. A side table and curtain fabric go alongside the chair to complete the design and give it a unique, elegant and contemporary feel.
Dana Aamro, Burqa
Tamara Barrage, Symbiotic Forms
Tamara Barrage, who opened her studio in Beirut in 2014, aspires to better articulate how forms and textures provoke senses, manipulate emotions and articulate memories. Her ‘symbiotic forms’ is a collection of colourful stools.
Tamara Barrage, Symbiotic Creatures
Reem Al Bustani, Acrylic Collection
Reem Al Bustani, Reem Al Bustani, Acrylic Partitions and Lighting Design
Dubai Design Week is ongoing until the 14th of November.
