Dubai Design Week and Beijing Design Week Organizing Committee are pleased to announce Dubai’s participation in Beijing Design Week (BJDW) as the Guest City for the upcoming 2015 edition, to be held from September 23 until October 7 in the Chinese capital. As part of a reciprocal agreement to foster further cultural exchange, BJDW will be welcomed as a ‘guest international design week’ at the inaugural Dubai Design Week in October this year.

BJDW names Dubai as Guest City, the first time for a city from the Middle East, in recognition of the emirate’s growing reputation as a global meeting point for the international art and design communities. The story of Dubai’s development and dynamic cultural scene was recently highlighted at Dubai Week in China, a seven-day event held in Beijing in May this year, and is further reinforced by the launch of Dubai Design Week in late October 2015.

BJDW Creative Director Beatrice Leanza comments: ‘’The appointment of Dubai as the 2015 Guest City resonates across a wider set of actions BJDW has undertaken to strengthen productive relations within the Asian region and encourage dialogue among its vibrant and diverse design cultures.’’

A key section within BJDW’s programme, the Guest City project aims to empower a network of global creative cities to work towards visionary solutions to common challenges and foster cultural exchange, knowledge-transfer and economic cooperation. Dubai follows in the footsteps of London, Milan, Amsterdam and Barcelona, all of which have featured as Guest City in the past four years.

The Dubai Guest City programme, supported by Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, Dubai Design District (d3), and Falcon and Associates, will include an exhibition curated by Emirati designer Moza Almatrooshi and a series of educational activities in partnership with Chinese institutions.

“By presenting design from Dubai and the United Arab Emirates at Beijing Design Week, we aim to create a cultural bridge between Emirati and Chinese cultures.  Both countries are distinctive and rich in their own ways, yet there are several similarities that lay in the history and the present of their cultural and urban fabric. By highlighting these similarities the two cultures are able to form a closer relationship; through visual communication we are able to transcend linguistic barriers, and find ease in coming together as citizens of the world,” says Moza Almatrooshi.

To maximise the potential for cultural exchange, in October this year, BJDW will be part of the inaugural edition of Dubai Design Week, participating in a unique initiative entitled ‘Destination’ that will be held within d3. BJDW will join five other international Design Weeks (Helsinki, Istanbul, Melbourne, Mexico City and San Francisco) and each city will have the opportunity to present a selection of their most exciting and emerging brands to a global audience.