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DUBAI: Installations focused on a sustainable future are on show at the latest edition of Dubai Design Week, running until Nov. 13.

Exhibitors from around the world have descended on the UAE city for the event and participating for the first time is world-renowned Italian fashion school Polimoda with alumni Lisa Mara Batacchi’s installation, “Shamal: Sand, Stone, Stars.”

Polimoda director, Massimiliano Giornetti, told Arab News: “I found Dubai Design Week to be an opportunity to widen our horizon.

“We are looking into new bridges and cultural exchanges, and I believe Dubai is a natural hub in which different cultures, influences, and inspirations are melted together.”

The former creative director of Salvatore Ferragamo and ex-Polimoda student now brings his vast experience into shaping the future of the design school.

“I feel that as a creator, there is a moment in which you need to give back your knowledge, experience, and know-how to the younger generation of creatives. I really believe that is a natural transition.”

Giornetti expressed pride about showcasing an alumni’s creation at Dubai Design Week. Curated by Federica Forti, Batacchi’s large-scale installation was inspired by Zoroastrian architecture and aims to highlight the upheavals of nature and the tumultuous times of the present day.

Batacchi has attempted to translate this via an image of a sandstorm – Shamal – the hot wind blowing from the northwest over the Arabian Peninsula. Batacchi wishes for the rebirth of humanity for the sake of greater spirituality and harmony.

Tapestries titled “Meditating on Earth” and “The World Is So Far Reversed” dominate. Hand-woven by the artist using raw and naturally dyed yarns and some vintage 1930s lacquer silks, their irregular texture was inspired by the sand continuously changing its form.

Giornetti said: “Shamal as an installation has a symbolic meaning – the necessity of collaboration between people and the possibility to interweave cultures, to reconnect with nature, to open a gate between earth and sky.

“The sense of absence of color is a deep and radical approach to a design that looks into the surfaces and textures more than decoration.

“Shamal is in my concept an ideal city of the future, in which the humans are connected through emotions.”