This year’s Abwab programme brings together five commissioned practices exploring language, memory and the ways we communicate through design.
Abwab has long been one of Dubai Design Week’s most interesting platforms for discovering creative talent. For 2026, however, the programme is taking a different approach. Instead of its familiar series of individual pavilions, five commissioned practices will come together in a single exhibition, exploring the relationship between language, material and meaning.
Titled In Other Words, the exhibition opens on November 3 at Dubai Design District, bringing together artists, designers and architects whose work considers how ideas are communicated, remembered and interpreted. The results range from an architectural installation informed by Kashmiri weaving traditions to an exploration of Arabic lettering using red light.
VARUSSI: Taleem
Dubai-based architecture and research practice VARUSSI, founded by Owais Asif Khan and Samreen Junaid Wani, draws on the traditional coding system used in Kashmiri carpet and Kani shawl weaving. Known as taleem, the system translates complex patterns into instructions that craftspeople can pass along. The practice has reinterpreted this language as an architectural structure that visitors can enter, examining how traditional knowledge survives through making.
Kanaka Raghavan: Cheent Devanagari
Designer, educator, and researcher Kanaka Raghavan turns her attention to Devanagari script, challenging the assumption that Latin typography should form the foundation of contemporary graphic design. Combining block printing, ornament, and translucent textiles, her installation lets letterforms separate and reconnect as visitors move around them, revealing the script’s visual structure.
Grace Shieh: A Library of Paper Memories
For writer and visual artist Grace Shieh, paper becomes a way to preserve personal and collective memory. Her installation brings together handmade paper, poetry and experimental writing, examining how fibres, textures and physical materials can communicate ideas that extend beyond the written word.
Dalia Rafeh: Shhhhhhhh
Dalia Rafeh takes the Arabic letter ش, or sheen, as the starting point for a seven-metre installation incorporating red light. Referencing the familiar sound used to request silence, the work considers the different meanings behind a seemingly simple gesture. Depending on the context, it can suggest authority, reflection or an invitation to listen.
UBIK: Non/Sense
Indian conceptual artist Vivek Premachandran, who works under the name UBIK, examines the peculiarities of translation and the point at which language begins to lose its meaning. Inspired by the writing of science-fiction author Philip K. Dick, his floor-based installation uses fragmented text, mistranslations and graphic-design placeholder language to create an unexpected visual composition.
In Other Words is presented as part of Dubai Design Week at Dubai Design District from November 3 to 8, 2026.
