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A Bahraini artist has been showcasing her work and the kingdom’s heritage of clay on a global platform at the London Design Week, inviting audiences to engage with her artistic process.
Multidisciplinary artist Nermin Habib’s The Becoming series is being displayed at Isola x Design London Shoreditch, which ends today at the Shoreditch Town Hall.
“The Becoming series is a deeply personal exploration of transformation, where both the clay and I evolve together through the creative process,” she explained.
“Each piece reflects my intimate relationship with the material, capturing the marks I leave behind, like a camera freezing a moment in time – traces of the making that tell the story of our shared journey.
“As the clay transitions from raw material to an expressive form, I, too, grew as an artist.
“This series celebrates process and identity, where every imprint holds the memory of connection, patience, and becoming – a dialogue between the clay and me, shaping us both into something meaningful.”
The exhibition invites audiences to engage with transformation – not as an endpoint but as an ongoing state.
Each vessel and fragment on display bears the traces of its making, from fingerprints to impressions, offering a record of dialogue between clay and artist.
The series captures not just the clay’s evolution from raw matter to expressive form, but also her own artistic growth.
Isola, in partnership with Design London Shoreditch, brought together designers, studios, brands and institutions to showcase contemporary craft, sustainability, collectable and innovative design.
This year, the festival is hosted inside the Shoreditch Town Hall as part of the Shoreditch Design Triangle’s House of ICON programme.
Over the three-day event, visitors have explored an array of furniture, lighting, textiles, accessories and ceramics, all curated to reflect innovation and craftsmanship at the highest level.
Nermin, currently an artist-in-residence at The Art Station in Muharraq, Bahrain, has built a multidisciplinary practice that encompasses creative strategy, filmmaking, photography and ceramics.
Her work is rooted in the concept of the ‘in-between,’ exploring the intersections where cultures, identities and ideas converge.
Before dedicating herself fully to ceramics, she worked in advertising and brand strategy, contributing to global projects, including Nasa campaigns, during her tenure at Google.
Her creative output extended to filmmaking, with her short film Cairo Soul winning awards and hearts.
A clip from the film was also featured in Pharrell Williams’ music video Freedom.
Ceramics has become a medium through which Nermin explores the subtleties of human experience.
Her practice is informed by a career that blends creative industries and the arts, offering a rare perspective on how discipline, experience and intuition intersect.
Following her MFA from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Nermin has explored the spaces where visual storytelling and material expression overlap.
She has previously exhibited internationally, including at Isola during Milan Design Week 2025, where her sculpture Flow was met with significant acclaim.
London Design Week has become a mainstay of the city over the last 20 years and, in 2019 attracted a record number of more than 600,000 visitors.
The Becoming series will be on display until today.
For more details, follow @nerminhabib on Instagram.
