Design Days Dubai: Tashkeel

Tashkeel is a Dubai gallery and studio resource for for artists and designers living and working in the United Arab Emirates. For Design Days Dubai, Tashkeel showcased three recent projects from its outreach arm, aimed at promoting the work of local artists and designers, facilitating cross-cultural dialogue and bringing art and design to the wider community.

Last Octobber saw the five-day Khatt Foundation Type Design Workshop provide an opportunity for thirty graphic design students and practicing professionals to develop contemporary Arabic fonts. Led by Huda AbiFares, founding director of the Khatt Foundation, alongside two leading designers specializing in Arabic type design, Pascal Zoghbi and Lara Assouad Khoury, the workshops gave people the chance to learn mow about both screen-printed and digitally printed techniques, in addition to illustrated seminars held at the Pavilion Downtown Dubai. For a detailed overview, take a look at Pascal Zoghbi’s blog entry here.

The Skate Biladi project is aimed at the wider community, with the remit to encourage a younger audience into the creative arts. In January 2012, Tashkeel opened Skate Biladi, a skateboard ramp whose outline echoes the Arabic type of the Tashkeel logo (the name ‘Tashkeel’ is derived from the word fen-tashkeely, which is the Arabic for fine art). Set in the garden behind the studios in Nad Al Sheba, Dubai, the launch was linked to a series of active/creative workshops, aimed at youngsters between ages 10-18 and an exhibition of skateboards customised by 30 UAE-based artists and designers. The project was masterminded by Brad Kirr, founder of Action Sports Arabia and Emarati skater Omar Al Abbar. Take a look at the Skate Biladi video below.

Tashkeel was also involved in Design Road, a series of workshops for the Creative Industries being held across the Middle East in 2011. Design Road Dubai was a five-day programme, which included an exhibition, seven parallel workshops and a series of seminars. The workshops brought together fifty participants from Dubai and the region, exploring such topics as Cool-hunting, Urban mapping and Curating contemporary design.

The Spanish Designer Josep Basora designed the image of Design Road Dubai 2011. ‘We wanted an image that symbolises the meeting, dialogue, brotherhood. We believe that tea time met all of these concepts into one, and a teapot was the perfect synthesis for this moment. We draw the teapot using the same modules that make up the identity of Design Road.’

Tashkeel opened in early 2008 and registered members can have access to studio facilities which are: fine art, photography studio and darkroom, printmaking, textile printing, MAC suite, jewellery and 3D studios. In addition to the studio resources, there is an up to date journals and reference library as well as a member’s room and a gallery open to the public.

For more on Tashkeel

Image credits: Tashkeel, with additional photography by Pascal Zoghbi.