Tanween is an intensive development programme for innovative emerging designers working in the UAE. The programme is structured and founded on core attitudes, parameters and values: empathy to people, objects and environments; a focus on skills, materials and production processes innate to the region; an intention to trigger cross-cultural dialogues and experimentation; and an insistence on authenticity and rigour in both design and production.
Since launching in 2013, Tanween has defined itself as a brand born of exhaustive and experimental learning. Drawing on the diversity of design programming at Tashkeel, depth is enriched through the invaluable contributions of esteemed international mentors. These contributions and collaborations bring Tanween to life. Each lab is a fertile ground where participants develop skills and insights not only fundamental to their success, but which are also progressively disseminated throughout the region in future collaborations and work.
Tanween matures and re-consolidates its ethos with every edition. This agile evolution is inherent and essential to the programme’s aims to serve and respond to the rapidly developing contemporary UAE design scene. Only via this staunch commitment to responsive evolution can the programme meet and avail of the exciting, novel contexts idiosyncratic
to the UAE. Tanween’s alumni are a testament to this, having gone on to receive international commissions, develop brands unique to the region, found innovative collectives and to act as the authoritative voices defining the nation’s design vernacular.
In its 11th edition, Tanween’s scope also continues to morph and expand as it draws on the capacities and successes of its alumni. The cross-generational mentorship and exchange seen in the growing Tanween community are an organic articulation of the programme’s essence of collaboration and dialogue.
Through the initiative, they nurture, stimulate and creatively nourish the designers in an intensive twelve-month programme of labs, workshops and mentoring. Essential to the sustainability and significance of this process are the long-standing relationships established with local manufacturers. With the intention of triggering cultural and economic development within the design, craft and manufacturing community, these collaborations often carry into the designer’s future projects as important cornerstones in their practices.
In a city such as Dubai, where manufacturers are often working to large, mass orders, bespoke design and production situated entirely in the country is rare. Through Tanween, designers have forged creative and fruitful partnerships with highly skilled craftspeople and manufacturers, the kind of partnerships that could only be possible in a country such as the UAE – abundantly populated with people from across the world. From craftswomen in Dibba Al Hisn on the eastern coast and camel leather tanneries in Al Ain to a biodegradable product business in Dubai Investment Park – the resultant products are true to the melange of cultures and traditions as well as to the bold ambitions of the UAE. Merging the very new with the ancient, drawing on future-facing approaches and suited to contemporary environments, Tanween is proud to present products that are innovative, relevant, desirable and functional – an embodiment of all that design in the UAE can be.