Loading Casa at Dubai Design Week in D3

This beautiful, poetic and deeply immersive exhibit at Dubai Design Week 2017 took us on journey to the city of Casablanca, with the works of, Zineb Andress Arraki, Aicha El Beloui, Hicham Lasri, Mostafa Maftah, and Anna Raimondo. Through poetry, film and tapestry this showcase meticulously curates the emotions and collective memory of this great African metropolis. 

The sound installation Casablanca Tells, guides you through the show, with its intricately layered recordings of vocal fragments, and sounds of the city; while catalogued archives of pop cultural imagery helps reconstruct the rich and tumultuous history.

The one piece that resonated with me most was the wool and cotton tapestry, Feu en Océan (Fire in the Ocean), by artist Mostafa Maftah. This beautiful explosion of colour and texture draws you instantaneously. The artist’s use of a gender-specific medium to express ‘revolution’ and just the sheer intensity and tactile nature of this piece is what made it incredibly special to me.

The show deconstructed years of history, making me seek the familiar in the unfamiliar, and in the end it left me with a deep sense of belonging, despite the fact that I had never traveled to the city of Casablanca.

‘Loading Casa at Dubai Design Week in D3’ By Sandhya Sethu, Senior Graphic Designer at Brand Creative Dubai