Liwan Craft Residency: Future Traditions & the New Authentic

2025–2026 Edition: Reimagining the Oasis – Our Design Ecosystem

The Liwan Craft Residency was an immersive program for designers and craftspeople based in Doha, Qatar. Rooted in the framework of Future Traditions & the New Authentic, the residency explored how craft, heritage, and cultural practices can be reinterpreted through contemporary design.

Residency Lead: Asma Derouiche

Designers: Shawky Abdalla and Abdul Rahman Anwar, Saga Elkabbash, Joe Bouabboud, Stephen Amoyo, Charlotte Rodenberg and Varvara Guljajeva.

Each edition is guided by a focused theme. For 2025–2026, residents responded to Reimagining the Oasis – Our Design Ecosystem, exploring the oasis as both a physical and metaphorical system of sustainability, resourcefulness, gathering, and exchange within Qatar’s cultural landscape.

Through research, mentorship, collaboration with artisans and production partners, and material experimentation, residents developed projects that bridge traditional craft practices with contemporary approaches to making. The program encouraged participants to engage with evolving notions of authenticity while exploring how local knowledge, materials, and technologies can inform future-facing design.

The residency culminates in a public exhibition presented as part of the second Doha Design Biennale in November 2026.

Through collaboration, research, and experimentation, participants were invited to create forward-looking designs that honour the past while shaping the future. The residency will culminate in a public exhibition at the second Doha Design Biennale in November 2026.