Oman pavilion exploring memory and identity in digital age wins award at London Design Biennale

Curator cherishes 'moment of pride' at event also featuring exhibitions from Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia

The award-winning Oman Pavilion is a contemplative space that took a year to make. Zawraq Collective / Instagram

A meditative exhibition exploring memory in the digital age has earned a prestigious medal for the Oman Pavilion on what is the sultanate’s first appearance at the London Design Biennale.

The pavilion commissioned by Oman’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth collected the best design medal at the traditional award ceremony held before the 2025 event opens to the public today at Somerset House. It runs until June 29.

Curated by Muscat’s Zawraq Collective and developed by architect Haitham Al Busafi, the Oman Pavilion is titled Memory Grid.

It arranges transparent, machine-milled vessels in a darkened room to create a contemplative grid – a metaphor for how memories are retained in a connected world.

The award-winning Oman Pavilion reimagines a data centre through Omani craft. Zawraq Collective / Instagram

As well as being one of the biennale’s most Instagrammable installations, the pavilion invites visitors to quietly ruminate in a space scored by a low, humming atmospheric soundtrack.

“We really wanted this project to ask questions about how we choose to remember and preserve our heritage in an age where everything is shared online,” Zawraq Collective co-founder Noor Al Mahruqi tells The National.

“We don’t often consider where we’re actually sharing these memories and how they’re physically stored in data centres. What we tried to do with this exhibition is create a fictionalised data centre – one represented through elements of our Omani heritage.”

To come here for the first time and win the Best Design Medal is a real privilege and a moment of pride

Noor Al Mahruqi,
Zawraq Collective co-founder

Memory Grid took a year to make and included an open call for Omani designers to propose an exhibition aligned with the collective’s curatorial vision of fusing “tradition, identity and contemporary life”.

The winning designer, Al Busafi, is the Omani architect behind the country’s first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2022.

Al Mahruqi adds: “Memory Grid is a continuation of the transmission of shared wisdom passed down by our elders and through family ties and expressed through craft and design that runs through all aspects of Omani society, from the creation of our aflaj water irrigation system to traditional pottery.

“So to come here to the London Design Biennale for the first time, and to win the Best Design Medal, is a real privilege and a moment of pride.”

The Abu Dhabi Pavilion uses sculpture, sound and archival footage to trace a traditional pearl diving journey. Saeed Saeed / The National

While the Oman Pavilion looked into the digital future, the biennale's Abu Dhabi Pavilion took inspiration from the UAE's maritime past. Co-commissioned by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi and presented by Qasr Al Hosn’s House of Artisans, the exhibition traces each stage of a traditional pearl diving voyage through sculpture installations, historical video footage and audio recordings.

Some of the historical items on display include the maflaqa, a curved oyster knife and the fattam, a nose plug made from sheep bone or turtle shell used by divers.

Audio recordings of naham chants – sea shanties – reverberate around the space, evoking the camaraderie necessary during those long and arduous journeys.

The Abu Dhabi Pavilion also showcases a natural pearl found on Al Marwah Island off the coast of Abu Dhabi. Dating back to between 5800 and 5600 BCE during the Neolithic period, the discovery is viewed as one of the earliest known pieces of evidence of pearling.

The Saudi Pavilion’s industrial installation looks at the hidden cost of providing clean water. Saeed Saeed / The National

Saudi Arabia's industrial-themed pavilion explores the hidden cost of making clean water freely available. Produced by the kingdom’s architecture and design commission and curated by Alaa Tarabzouni, Aziz Jamal, Dur Kattan and Fahad bin Naif, Good Water takes its structure from the traditional public water fountain known as the sabeel.

At its centre is a metallic frame stocked with plastic cups, bottled water and looping video footage of large-scale industrial water production. Described in the curators’ notes as “design without designers,” the space is intentionally raw and cold, exposing the infrastructure behind the free water fountains we often take for granted.

“While it offers water freely, the reality is that the water is not free at all. Every sip is made possible by a complex system of labour, energy, and economics,” the exhibition notes read. “Ultimately, the pavilion asserts that while free water may be paid for by someone else, it is never without cost.”