Words by Allegra Salvadori | Photo Credit Nikita Berezhnoy, Courtesy of NOMAD Circle
For its landmark Middle East debut, NOMAD has transformed the decommissioned Terminal 1 of Zayed International Airport into an immersive stage for collectible design. In this circular hall once defined by departures and arrivals, Bottega Veneta presents Destinations — an exhibition that turns the house’s most iconic code, the Intrecciato weave, into a dialogue with the Middle East and North Africa.
Founded in 1966 in Vicenza, Italy, around a community of artisans, Bottega Veneta is synonymous with expressive craftsmanship and quietly radical design. Cultural advocacy has long been central to the maison’s philosophy, with projects spanning design, craft, literature, architecture, and the visual and performing arts. At NOMAD Abu Dhabi, this commitment takes the form of a curatorial gesture: inviting regional creatives to reinterpret the weave that has defined the brand for fifty years.
Curated by Rana Beiruti, Destinations brings together eight designers and studios from across the MENA region, each responds to Intrecciato not as a motif to replicate, but as a principle to challenge, stretch, and reshape.
The interpretations vary in scale, material, and intent, yet together they form a quietly resonant landscape. Abdalla Almulla anchors Emirati weaving traditions in sculptural, communal geometries, while Amine Asselman’s leather “landscapes” unfold like fields of motion and memory. Bahraini—danish translate the discipline of the weave into interlocking teak structures of almost architectural clarity, as Esna Su’s hand-knitted leather pillars rise with a sense of resilience and renewal. Shaha Raphael fossilises Intrecciato in volcanic stone, binding craft to geological time, while Zein Daouk’s ceramics map fragile networks of interdependence. Nader Gammas composes luminous totems where craft converses with digital light, and Sayar & Garibeh weave fibre and leather into playful architectures that capture movement, touch, and the intimacy of making.
Together, these works reveal weaving as both technique and metaphor — a structure of connection, a social fabric, a record of routes and traditions. Within NOMAD’s understated, architectural setting, the exhibition becomes a journey through places and perspectives, each piece carrying a different geography, memory, or cultural lineage.
More than a celebration of a design icon, Destinations positions Bottega Veneta’s 50-year Intrecciato legacy as an open framework for exchange. By offering its heritage as a starting point rather than an endpoint, the maison weaves itself into a regional narrative of craft, innovation, and contemporary identity — one that unfolds, fittingly, in a space once devoted to global movement.
Destinations by Bottega Veneta, NOMAD Abu Dhabi
19–22 November 2025, Terminal 1, Zayed International Airport
