Doha, Qatar: Design Doha has announced the return of its international residency programme, Crafting Design Futures, with four designers from Qatar and the wider Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA) region selected to work alongside Mexican master artisans as part of the Qatar-Mexico 2026 Year of Culture.
The 2026 edition builds on the inaugural residency held during the Qatar-Morocco 2024 Year of Culture. It brings designers and artisans together as collaborators, using research, experimentation and shared making to explore what inherited craft knowledge can offer contemporary design.
Working inside family-run workshops, the participants will learn techniques passed down through generations, from ancestral engraving to the hand-hammered copper of Santa Clara del Cobre.
The resulting works will be presented from October 8 to November 1 at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, as part of Design Week Mexico’s Visión y Tradición exhibition. The platform, established by Design Week Mexico and Mexico Territorio Creativo, connects contemporary designers with artisan communities across Mexico through research, collaboration and cultural exchange.
Director of Design Doha Fahad Al Obaidly said: “The success of our first residency with Morocco showed us that the most meaningful design happens when people create together and learn from one another along the way. Through our partnership with Years of Culture, we’re building a global network of designers and artisans who exchange knowledge, challenge perspectives and form relationships that inspire a new generation of design exactly the type of lasting impact Years of Culture is designed to create.”
This year’s four collaborations span clay, engraving, ceramics, metalwork and hand-hammered copper.
Lebanese designer and multidisciplinary artist Shirine Sbaiti, who works under the name LimbObject and uses human limbs as structural and aesthetic elements, is paired with Norberto y Rosi. Their handcrafted clay works preserve sgraffito, a technique of carving through a layer of pigment to reveal a contrasting colour beneath, alongside painted-clay traditions rooted in Mexican community histories.
Qatar-based Iranian interdisciplinary designer Yasamin Shaikhi, whose practice explores material innovation, memory and the transformation of overlooked materials, has partnered with Guadalajara’s Estudio Guerrero. The studio is known for combining glazed, majolica-type ceramic with ornamental alpaca, or white metal.
Syrian multidisciplinary designer Kenan Alkuwatly is working with master engraver José Cruz in Xochimilco, Mexico City. Cruz specialises in pepita engraving, a hand-carving technique dating back to the 16th century in which small, seed-like indentations are pressed into glassware. He began learning the craft at 12 in his father’s and uncle’s workshops and was considered a master by 17. Alkuwatly’s practice draws on the architecture, ornament and material culture of the Arab world, and the pair will explore the idea that an object can hold memory.
