What happens when you bring together artists from different corners of the world, mix in a little technology, and let visitors become part of the creative process? That’s the idea behind CURIOUS STUDIO, a new global creative initiative by IQOS that made its debut at Dubai Design Week 2026, turning creativity into something people can experience, explore, and contribute to.
Developed in collaboration with multidisciplinary creative studio OUCHHH Collective, CURIOUS STUDIO explores the intersection of art, technology, and human curiosity. Rather than presenting finished artworks for visitors to simply admire, the initiative invites them to leave their own mark on an evolving creative journey, bringing together different perspectives, cultural influences, and artistic expressions.
Getting Curious With OUCHHH Collective
At the heart of CURIOUS STUDIO is the belief that creativity rarely comes from one place. Every artistic creation is shaped by a mix of people, places, memories, emotions, and experiences, with each contributing something to the final result.
To bring this idea to life, IQOS partnered with OUCHHH Collective, a multidisciplinary studio known for exploring the meeting point of art, design, science, and technology. The collaboration uses human creativity and artificial intelligence to experiment with new forms of artistic expression, showing how technology can help connect different creative disciplines and cultural influences.
As Alina Igritskaya, Director of Brand Marketing, Heat-not-Burn at Philip Morris International, explained,
“CURIOUS STUDIO is a natural evolution of what IQOS stands for: the belief that curiosity is not just a mindset, but a driver that moves people forward.”
A Global Creative Meeting Point With a Regional Touch
Making its global debut at Dubai Design Week 2026, CURIOUS STUDIO brought together 14 creatives from 13 countries, creating a space where different artistic backgrounds and cultural perspectives could meet.
The Dubai edition also placed regional creativity in the spotlight, bringing together four artists: Karrouhat, HiFi, Cheb Moha, and Abrar Zenkawi. Their contributions drew inspiration from cultural references such as Arabic embroidery, traditional musical structures, and Arabesque geometry, reinterpreting familiar artistic elements through contemporary design and technology.
Set up at Dubai Design District (d3), Building 9, from November 3 to 8, the immersive installation featured separate spaces showcasing the selected creatives and their work. Through digital visuals, music, geometric patterns, and interactive elements, visitors could explore how traditional influences and contemporary artistic practices can come together in unexpected ways.
From Watching Art to Becoming Part of It
One of the most interesting aspects of CURIOUS STUDIO is that visitors aren’t just there to look around. They’re invited to actively participate in the creative process, contributing personal input through different interactive experiences.
By bringing together music, drawing, digital visuals, and individual creative contributions, the installation explores how seemingly different ideas can become part of one collective artwork. It’s an approach that shifts the traditional relationship between the artist and the audience, allowing visitors to become contributors rather than observers.
For Richa Rustagi, Managing Director of Philip Morris Middle East, the Dubai launch also reflects the company’s wider regional ambitions.
“Launching Curious Studio globally for the first time in Dubai reflects our long-term commitment to the region and our ambition to create responsible, meaningful and culturally relevant experiences for adult nicotine consumers. Through initiatives like this, we aim to bring adult IQOS users and their ideas together and contribute to the region’s growing role on the global cultural and innovation landscape.”
The Journey Continues in Milan in 2027
While Dubai marks the beginning of CURIOUS STUDIO’s global journey, there’s a bigger creative project taking shape beyond the installation.
The personal inputs and data collected from participants around the world will be brought together by OUCHHH Collective’s AI artists and transformed into a large-scale, immersive digital artwork. The final collective creation is set to be unveiled at Milan Design Week 2027, taking place from April 12 to 18.
This means the Dubai debut is just the first chapter of a creative process that will continue to evolve as more people, ideas, and cultural perspectives become part of it. And when the project reaches Milan, all those individual contributions will come together in one shared artistic expression.
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