Tanween 8th edition gives voice to community with workshops and talks.

7 hours ago7 min read2 comments

Tanween, the annual creative pulse of the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra), is set to return for its 8th edition from November 17-22, 2025, in Dhahran, and this year’s theme, ‘Design the Unspoken,’ promises to transform the very canvas of community interaction. Imagine a design festival not as a mere exhibition of objects, but as a living, breathing ecosystem where workshops, challenges, and immersive two-day programs act as collaborative tools, allowing a community to collectively give form to its unarticulated dreams and shared identities.This is the vision of Tanween 2025, a platform where the silent dialogues of a culture—the subtle nuances of tradition, the quiet aspirations for the future, the unvoiced challenges of the present—are brought into the light through the deliberate and empathetic act of design. For creatives, this is the ultimate user experience challenge: to design not for a user, but with a community, using tools like interactive panels and bustling design markets as the collaborative software for this social prototyping.The ‘Grad Show’ becomes more than a display of talent; it is the raw, unfiltered data set of a new generation’s perspective, ready to be integrated into the larger project. This approach mirrors the most exciting developments in AI-augmented creativity, where tools like Midjourney or Figma plugins don't just execute commands but collaborate, suggesting forms and patterns the human mind might not initially perceive.Similarly, Tanween positions design as a co-creative partner with the public, facilitating a process where the final outcome is not pre-determined but emerges organically from the interplay of expert guidance and communal voice. The ‘Unspoken’ is the latent potential, the vast training data of a society's hopes and heritage, waiting for the right algorithm—in this case, a thoughtfully curated festival—to process it into a stunning and meaningful output. By focusing on this, Ithra is not just hosting an event; it is architecting a profound dialogue, proving that the most powerful designs are those that give a visible, tangible voice to what was once only felt, thereby setting a new global benchmark for how cultural institutions can act as catalysts for generative, community-led creation.

#featured

#Tanween

#Ithra

#design festival

#workshops

#exhibitions

#talks

#community

#Saudi Arabia

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