Crafting Design Futures pairs MENASA designers with Mexican master artisans

Design Doha's Crafting Design Futures residency, developed under the Qatar, Canada and Mexico 2026 Year of Culture, joined Design Week Mexico's Vision y Tradicion programme in Mexico City.

Four designer-artisan pairs let the artisan's technique reshape the design: pepita glass engraving, sgraffito clay, majolica-and-alpaca metalwork, hand-hammered copper.

Syrian designer Kenan Alkuwatly worked with master engraver Jose Cruz; Lebanese artist Shirine Sbaiti with ceramicists Norberto y Rosi; Qatar-based Iranian designer Yasamin Shaikhi with Estudio Guerrero; British-Indian designer Armaan Bansal with Alan Pureco's three-generation copper workshop. Each pair co-developed objects in the workshop until the artisan's knowledge changed the original concept, then showed them at the National Museum of Anthropology, October 8 to November 1, 2026.

Shown at the National Museum of Anthropology during Design Week Mexico 2026; the exchange continues with Expanded Tradition at M7 in Doha from October 27, Elena Reygadas's Panaderia Rosetta at Doha Design District, and Fernando Laposse's The Sower at the Design Doha Biennale.

Years of Culture's Crafting Design Futures residency, developed by Design Doha under the Qatar, Canada and Mexico 2026 Year of Culture, joined Design Week Mexico's Vision y Tradicion programme - four collaborations between designers from Qatar and the wider MENASA region and Mexican master artisans, exploring glass engraving, clay, ceramics and hand-hammered copper. The results opened at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City on October 8, 2026, running to November 1 as part of DWM26's 'Perspectives from the Global South' theme.

The pairings matched inherited techniques to practices: Kenan Alkuwatly, who draws on Arab architecture and ornament, worked with Jose Cruz, a master of pepita glass engraving since 17; Shirine Sbaiti, who uses human limbs as structural elements, worked with Norberto y Rosi and their sgraffito clay, scratched away to reveal contrasting layers; Yasamin Shaikhi experimented with Estudio Guerrero's majolica ceramics and alpaca metalwork; Armaan Bansal worked with Alan Pureco's three-generation copper workshop.

The residency's rule was that initial ideas had to be open to change: designers encountered techniques, materials and knowledge built over years or generations, and the objects ended up reflecting the artisans' contribution as much as the designers' concepts. 'Craft is not simply a means of producing a designer's idea. It is knowledge in its own right,' said Fahad Al Obaidly, director of Design Doha, asking designers to enter workshops 'ready to listen'.

The brief reversed the usual direction: designers were instructed to let the artisan's experience change their thinking and the object itself, instead of commissioning execution.

Each pairing matched a designer's motif - Arab ornament, limb-based form, overlooked materials, inherited skill - to one specific Mexican workshop tradition.

It connected MENASA designers with workshops whose knowledge runs up to three generations deep, in a Year of Culture framework built for exactly this exchange.

Treat craft as knowledge, not a service: when a designer enters a workshop ready to listen, the artisan's experience changes the object - and the designer's idea of value and authorship.

The programme extends beyond the museum show: Expanded Tradition, curated by Ana Elena Mallet, opens at M7 in Doha on October 27, 2026, bringing together Mexican makers reinterpreting inherited techniques from silver filigree to lacquerware; chef Elena Reygadas takes Panaderia Rosetta to Doha Design District with Perla Valtierra's handmade ceramics; Fernando Laposse's The Sower opens during the Design Doha Biennale, linking Mexican and Qatari traditions.