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The British Omani Society was delighted to host the visionary Omani creatives behind the award winning ‘Memory Grid’ pavilion at the London Design Biennale for a networking event on Friday, June 6th 2025.
The Omani pavilion, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, was designed by Omani Architect and designer Haitham Al Busafi and curated by Zawraq Collective, Noor Al Mahrooqi and Zaima Al Adawi.
The three-week exhibition of the London Design Biennale opened on June 5th 2025 and ‘Memory Grid’ won the Best Design Award at the opening, marking a significant achievement for Oman in its debut participation at this major event.
This artist-organised event at the BOS brought together creatives from Oman, the UK and the wider Gulf region – including the BOS Art Group and other exhibitors at the Biennale. They were also joined by members of the Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman in London, following the Omani Ambassor’s tour of the Biennale. Attendees discussed artistic practices in Oman and beyond, the planning and collaborative processes behind the creation of the Omani pavilion, and heard from other exhibiting artists.
‘Memory Grid’ examines the evolution of values by reimagining traditional Omani pottery vessels through a contemporary lens. By arranging transparent interpretations of this pottery in a grid formation reminiscent of data centers, the artist Haitham aimed to create a visual meditation on how societies determine what's worth safeguarding across generations.
It transforms visitors from observers to participants by inviting them to contribute their own memories to the installation. This collaborative approach mirrors how digital legacy functions today—not as isolated individual efforts, but as networked repositories of human experience.
At the BOS, we were grateful to have the opportunity to ask the creative minds behind ‘Memory Grid’ a few questions about the project and what this landmark achievement means for them:
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Q: How long have you been planning this and what steps did you take to make this a success?
Noor Al Mahrooqi: The Ministry reached out to the Zawraq collective around a year ago and we started off with a closed call where we reached out to nine different designers and architects to submit a design proposal based on a prompt that we developed. One of the best design concepts we’ve ever seen was the ‘Memory Grid’ proposal that Haitham presented, so he was the winning bid. We’ve been working ever since with the Ministry, developing the project and narrative, working with contractors in London, to actually bring it to life at the beginning of this month.
Zaima Al Adawi: Just to add to what Noor said, we’ve worked with other artists to bring this whole idea together. We worked with Studio Sein who did the branding for ‘Memory Grid’ and we worked with a soundscape artist named Taher Majid who worked on the background noise that’s playing in the installation.
Q: How did you get into this field?
Haitham Al Busafi: I come from an architectural background, I started working around fifteen years ago now. I’ve done a few installations here and there, but mainly I’m doing architecture in the intersection of physical and virtual worlds.
Noor: We started working on Zawraq in 2021 and we launched our very first project in January 2022, which was ‘You Can’t Be Here’ and was a response to how Covid-19 impacted our five senses. We worked with around thirteen emerging artists from Oman. Ever since then, we’ve done around six projects in the last three years and ‘Memory Grid’ is our seventh project.
Q: How do you feel after winning the Best Design medal at the London Design Biennale?
Haitham: We were really honoured to win the award at the Biennale, especially as it’s our first participation here. I think it’s a crowning achievement for the efforts that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth have been working on for the past few years. It’s an honour to be representing my country and as young Omani creatives on a global platform.
Noor: It feels amazing. It’s honestly such a holistic moment especially because one of the main things we try to do with Zawraq is that we want to show the world that there is so much cultural and artistic potential in Oman. There is so much we can show and there are so many stories we can tell. We can tell it in a way that is not only on par with the rest of the world, but also far ahead of the world as well. With ‘Memory Grid’ especially, we were able to prove that. We are young Omani artists that were given a platform to be creative, experiment and take risks and it was worthwhile.
Q: What are your ambitions for the future?
Haitham: We are working on a few projects that will hopefully work out. For me as a creative, I always like to work in the intersection of physical and virtual worlds and it will be continuation of that. Taking part in this would make the next journey more interesting and hopefully more challenging.
Q: What do you want people to take away from the Omani pavilion at the London Design Biennale?
Noor: One of the most important messages to understand that there can be innovation rooted in heritage. The ‘Memory Grid’ project is rooted in Omani heritage and history, but it tells it in a new and innovative and that’s something that is a part of the Omani identity.
Haitham: One of the core ideas that we were pushing with this project was that the rich heritage of pottery making in Oman was basically a continuous thread from 3000 BC until today. We still to this day see people working with pottery in Oman. In the past, it was a storage of what we considered precious. In today’s day and age, our installation tries to put you in the context of a data centre, which is basically what we consider precious today, not only in Oman but on a global scale. It’s this idea of contemplation of what we deem precious and the changing meaning of value: what it was before and what it is today. As well as the idea of legacy, 3000 years after these pots were made and found, the same thing could be said about us. What would people find important about me, you and everyone 3000 years from now? This is the question we want to pose with this installation.
Massive thanks to Haitham, Noor and Zaima for taking the time to chat with us about their incredible new project!
For more information on the pavilion and themes of the exhibition, visit londondesignbiennale.com