Tashkeel’s Design Programme culminates in March with these projects

Latifa Saeed’s Kinetic Khoos. A series of kinetic design installations. Courtesy of Tashkeel.

Four UAE-based designers who are part of Tashkeel’s Design Programme have announced the details of their projects to be presented at Design Days Dubai in March. In collaboration with PAL Labs, the UK’s leading organisation for facilitating studio-based processes, this programme has provided the designers with sustained mentorship from established designers and curators to culminate in the final products.

Talin Hazbar, has created an innovative lighting piece called Lithic that explores structure and the material possibilities of natural resources.

Rand Abdul Jabbar is working on a place called Forma, a series of furniture pieces with the objective to expose people to the beauty and craft of dhow building and provide them with a new sense of appreciation for a profession that has been slowly receding over the past few decades.

Saher Oliver Samman has mastered the skills of traditional leather design, creating bespoke garments and objects. His work, Woven (a hammock) identifies with the sadu weaving aesthetic using both a material that he's familiar with along with woods and metal.

Finally, Latifa Saeed who is participating in this programme for the second time, has used palm tree fronds or 'khoos' to create a series of children's toys called Kinetic Khoos.

The design programme is part of Tashkeel’s long-term commitment to support locally-based designers and to enhance the diversity of the region’s cultural skills and resources, influenced from traditional to modern elements of the UAE.