ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT

Installation Shot, Credit Aya Saleh Courtesy Galerie Tanit
View Gallery 17 Photos
Installation Shot, Credit Aya Saleh Courtesy Galerie Tanit
SELECTIONS ARTS MAGAZINE
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4BOKJA is a Beirut-based design studio, crafting narratives through embroidery and textile to signers from the region, Bokja represents a unique cluster of textile practices from free-motion embroidery to painting. Through its work, the studio seeks to preserve a local craft tradition redefining it in a contemporary voice. There is intense emotion and powerful storytelling cultivated in every piece. A drama. A fable. A fantasy. BOKJA operates out of Beirut, a city that echoes this complex language of assemblage. The country itself is positioned between old and new, east and west, bringing to the surface issues of identity and impermanence. Behind Bokja’s skins is an underlying theme of identity; how it can be created and collected, how it can travel and adapt, and how it can ultimately be shared and communicated. Founded by Hoda Baroudi and Maria Hibri, Bokja was born from the female duo’s shared passion for furniture, textiles, art and design. While Hoda has spent her life collecting fabrics from the Silk Road, Maria is an expert in antique pieces of furniture with a hidden beauty. The two married their expertise and knowledge of traditional craftsmanship and started Bokja, reupholstering vintage furniture found in antique stores and flea markets with precious fabrics from the region.
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
200Grs. Rana Haddad . Pascal Hachem Starting from our fascination with the city as a melting pot of cultures, we, Rana Haddad and Pascal Hachem, co-founded design studio 200Grs. in 2013 with the vision of a practice that positively fuels and maintains alive our city, Beirut. Our work learns from the region’s geographic richness and artisanal know-how for the production of bespoke pieces that challenge spatial constraints and address social trends through the ingenuity of design. Each of our artistic yet functional items are authentic, a unique manifestation of the concepts of materiality, elasticity, tension and balance. We bring into play Lebanese local craftmanship and artisanal skill that stem from a mix of the region’s different histories and that are at a risk of disappearing. We believe our practice distinguishes itself in our very hands-on process of collaboration with local makers and artisans, in an attempt to revive their craft and to push their skill into a more contemporary framework. It is through this process of experimentation with new crafts that our designs find no limitation in terms of choice of material, form and function. Growing up in a city that taught us to live one day at a time, we create items that perform in the same manner, objects that generate an emotional and ergonomic relationship with the end-user. Our work falls within a discourse of thought that requestions art and design as a practice and positions it as a tool with a potential for social impact and change. Recently the Victoria and Albert Museum, V&A in London, UK; acquired pieces from 200Grs.

Photo Credit Elige Abou Youness

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
Anastasia Nysten founded her studio in 2015 in which she experiments with objects and spaces influenced by the multiple cultures she’s been exposed to growing up, and the curiosity she has developed towards cultural appropriation. Every object has a story to tell, whether it is invented or inspired. It combines the surprise of the unknown and the expectation of the familiar Nysten was born in Ottawa, Canada to a Lebanese mother and a Finnish father, and grew up in Finland, France and Lebanon. She received her Masters degree in Industrial Design from ALBA (Academie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts) in Beirut, Lebanon, during which time she was working at Karen Chekerdjian design studio. After Graduation she moved to London to be part of lighting designer Michael Anastassiades’ team. Her recent exhibitions include Maison & Objet (Talent Award 2018) and Gallerie Bensimon in Paris, Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan, Athr Gallery in KSA and House of Today, Smo Gallery, Over The Counter and Beirut Art Fair (Talent Award 2017) in Beirut. Her proposal for a public bench commissioned by the Pharaon Group has recently been revealed in iconic Downtown Beirut Nejmeh Square.

Photo Credit Aya Saleh

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
Bernard Khoury studied architecture at the Rhode Island school of Design (BFA 1990 / B.Arch 1991) and Harvard University (M.Arch 1993). He was awarded by the municipality of Rome, the Borromini Prize honorable mention given to architects under 40 years of age (2001), the Architecture + Award (2004), the CNBC Award (2008) and nominated for several awards including the Aga Khan award (2002 / 2004/ 2021), the Chernikov prize (2010) and the Mies van der Rohe Award (2021). He co-founded of the Arab Center for Architecture (2008). He was a visiting professor in several universities including the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and L’Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris. He has lectured and exhibited his work in over 150 institutions, including solo shows at the Aedes gallery in Berlin (2003), the Spazio per l’architecttura Milano (2016) and numerous group shows including YOU prison at the Fondazione Sandretto in Torino (2008), the opening show of the MAXXI museum in Roma (2010), the Frac Architecture Biennale in Orleans (2018), the Oris House of Architecture in Zagreb (2020) and the Architecture Biennale of Seoul (2021). He was the architect and cocurator of the Kingdom of Bahrain’s national pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2014). Over the years he has developed an international reputation and a diverse portfolio of projects in over fifteen countries. Khoury was nominated by the French Ministry of Culture Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (2020)

Photo Credit Elige Abou Youness

Source: Galerie Tanit
SELECTIONS ARTS MAGAZINE
BOKJA is a Beirut-based design studio, crafting narratives through embroidery and textile to signers from the region, Bokja represents a unique cluster of textile practices from free-motion embroidery to painting. Through its work, the studio seeks to preserve a local craft tradition redefining it in a contemporary voice. There is intense emotion and powerful storytelling cultivated in every piece. A drama. A fable. A fantasy. BOKJA operates out of Beirut, a city that echoes this complex language of assemblage. The country itself is positioned between old and new, east and west, bringing to the surface issues of identity and impermanence. Behind Bokja’s skins is an underlying theme of identity; how it can be created and collected, how it can travel and adapt, and how it can ultimately be shared and communicated. Founded by Hoda Baroudi and Maria Hibri, Bokja was born from the female duo’s shared passion for furniture, textiles, art and design. While Hoda has spent her life collecting fabrics from the Silk Road, Maria is an expert in antique pieces of furniture with a hidden beauty. The two married their expertise and knowledge of traditional craftsmanship and started Bokja, reupholstering vintage furniture found in antique stores and flea markets with precious fabrics from the region.
ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
BOKJA is a Beirut-based design studio, crafting narratives through embroidery and textile to signers from the region, Bokja represents a unique cluster of textile practices from free-motion embroidery to painting. Through its work, the studio seeks to preserve a local craft tradition redefining it in a contemporary voice. There is intense emotion and powerful storytelling cultivated in every piece. A drama. A fable. A fantasy. BOKJA operates out of Beirut, a city that echoes this complex language of assemblage. The country itself is positioned between old and new, east and west, bringing to the surface issues of identity and impermanence. Behind Bokja’s skins is an underlying theme of identity; how it can be created and collected, how it can travel and adapt, and how it can ultimately be shared and communicated. Founded by Hoda Baroudi and Maria Hibri, Bokja was born from the female duo’s shared passion for furniture, textiles, art and design. While Hoda has spent her life collecting fabrics from the Silk Road, Maria is an expert in antique pieces of furniture with a hidden beauty. The two married their expertise and knowledge of traditional craftsmanship and started Bokja, reupholstering vintage furniture found in antique stores and flea markets with precious fabrics from the region.

Photo Credit Elige Abou Youness

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
In pursuit of a more engaged practice that reintroduces gesture back into the design process, Carla Baz established a Beirut-based studio where she collaborates with highly-skilled craftsmen to nurture the link between the hand that draws and the hand that makes. Together they work innovatively, transferring knowledge and reinterpreting techniques to modernize craft and create a distinctive product. Every piece is the result of a collaborative exchange with a team of accomplished artisans passionate about their specialty. Both parties constantly explore the possibilities of form, functionality and feasibility, resulting in the creation of works that are at once sculptural and practical, ornate and clean, strong and subtle. Having studied Interior Architecture at ESAG Penninghen in Paris followed by Product design for the Luxury Industry at the University of Art and Design Lausanne (ECAL), she moved to London upon completing her Master’s Degree to work with renowned designers, including Vivienne Westwood and Zaha Hadid. Carla is rooted in the art and design community and holds multiple design awards, including Maison&Objet Rising Talent Award (2018) and Fondation Boghossian Design Prize in Brussels (2013). She is now based in the UAE.

Photo Credit Bendy Chidiac

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
Carlo is a designer and architect with a multidisciplinary studio based in Beirut. He creates unique interiors through a close collaboration with clients, mixing vintage pieces, bespoke objects, and architectural elements. His work involves a hands-on approach to design, working closely with master artisans to create sculptural pieces that stand out in every room. The exploration of new and unknown places is key to his creations. Through these, he finds new stories to tell and share, collaborating with local artisans and designers, creating a global narrative that stems from unique associations of people, cultures, and materials. Carlo has been participating in international fairs, including the Armory Show (NYC), Southern Guild (Cape Town), Design Days (Dubai), Maison & Objet (Paris)

Carlo Massoud, Tarek and Laurence Nahas Collection. Photo Credit Aya Saleh

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
David Raffoul and Nicolas Moussallem met at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts where they both studied interior design. Together they furthered their studies at the Scuola Poliltecnica Di Design in Milan before going their separate ways, with David joining the Fabrica research centre in Treviso and Nicolas becoming a freelance designer. In 2011 the duo met again and set up their design studio in Beirut, quickly building their worldwide reputation thanks to their multidisciplinary approach and «retrofuturistic » style. Over the years their creations have been exhibited at the Nilufar Gallery and the Carpenters Workshop Gallery. They have worked in conjunction with major international brands as well as on high-end projects for independent clients. They bring an obsessive attention to the smallest details and cheerfully combine Eastern and Western influences, ancient and contemporary. Even their creative processes are very different, David tends to sketch a lot and Nicolas is more narrative – he prefers to write everything down, even the way the object looks.

Photo Credit Aya Saleh

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
Exil Collective is the first design incubator in the Middle-East promoting budgetconscious products made in Lebanon. It is an invitation to re-shape the design industry of the MENA region. We look to democratise the design industry of our region by offering equal opportunities to talents, sharing the extensive production capability of our country and creating an ecosystem for a more sustainable approach to design.

Photo Credit Aya Saleh

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
Studio Manda is a furniture and interior design company based in Beirut and activ internationally. Georges Mohasseb and his team develop together interior design projects, while Mohasseb’s practice focuses individually on furniture design and limited editions.

Georges Mohasseb for Studio Manda. Photo Credit Aya Saleh

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
Jean Louis et Mado Mellerio.

Photo Credit Elige Abou Youness

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
Karen Chekerdjian’s trajectory into the world of design was driven by eclectic interests, resulting in an unconventional combination of practical and diverse experience in various creative fields. In addition to affecting her personal history and personality, growing up during the Lebanese Civil War also impacted her design philosophy and continuous pursuit of meaning.

Photo Credit Aya Saleh

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
Described as modernist and brutalist, Khalil Khouri was one of the first artisans of exposed concrete. He co-founded, with his brother Georges, an architecture and industrial design studio. Together, they produced works that have left their mark on the country's and the region’s architectural landscape. These include the Municipal Stadium of Jounieh (1963), the College des Freres Mont-La-Salle (1970), the “Galerie Schèmes” building (1973), the Manar seaside resort (1982) and The Tilal mountain resort (1996), Perhaps his most spectacular architectural achievement, the Interdesign showroom building was conceived in 1973 and completed in 1997 to exhibit the furniture he designed and produced. Today, it is recognized internationally as a very significant piece of brutalist architecture.

Photo Credit Elige Abou Youness

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
Marc Baroud is a cross-disciplinary designer. His enthusiasm for new ventures led him to practice his design method in various projects including ones that are seemingly unrelated to design. In 2012, he founded the Design Department at Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, which he directed from 2012 to 2017. His objective was to reform design education, whilst using his same design approach. The implemented curricula envision design as a broader discipline than one limited to creating aesthetics and artefacts.Based in Paris and Beirut, he works on bridging his two cities and cultures, as well as across several applications of Design. His projects include commercial architecture, scenography, interior design, furniture, services and brand development. Consulting for private projects, start-ups, as well as big corporations, his practice focuses more and more on craftsmanship and local production. Away from the form follows function paradigm, he designs objects with a method he calls materisation, which he defines as the transition from the state of idea to the state of object. His collectible works have been shown in Beirut, Brussels, Dubai, London, Milan, Paris, Design/Miami and Design/Miami Basel. His pieces are part of private and public institutions including Paris!"Musée des Arts Décoratifs and MUDAC Lausanne"s permanent collections. After the recent economic collapse and explosion in Beirut, he focuses on producing all his works in Lebanon.

Photo Credit Elige Abou Youness

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
The Massoud siblings have been experimenting with innovative approaches to common objects since 2016. Their hands-on approach is guided by fun and trial and error. Every collection brings together the clashing yet harmonizing styles of the brother and sister duo, with Marylynn’s handmade ceramic work complementing Carlo’s careful preproduction obsession. The latest collection, The Elephant Project, consists of oversized indoor and outdoor furniture made of colored lightweight concrete. The collection was entirely imagined in Lebanon and is made locally by Artisans.

Marylynn And Carlo. Photo Credit Aya Saleh

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
Maurice Bonfils.

Photo Credit Aya Saleh

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
Nada Debs is a Levantine designer living and working in Beirut. Her work spans scale and discipline: from product and furniture design to one-off commissions across craft, art, fashion and interiors. Nada grew up in Japan, studied design at Rhode Island School of Design in the United States and has spent significant periods of time living and travelling the world, finding connections between different cultures. What ties her work together is her ability to distil culture and craftsmanship to create pieces of emotional resonance. She calls her approach: handmade and heartmade. Nada has a hands-on, human approach to design. She brings passion to process, combining ideas, skills and techniques together from her travels, to form a unique cultural exchange. She is fascinated by the role of the human hand to tell stories and to evoke a sense of belonging. She describes craft as a feeling that goes beyond geography, language and culture. Her work is driven by a belief in the power of design to cross time and border and touch us on a primal level. She describes her design as an expression, not just of form and function, but of feeling too. Nada opened her first showroom in the Saifi district of Beirut in 2003. Today her gallery, where she shows her latest work alongside a wide range of elements from past collections is in the same premises as her design studio, in a former residential building in Gemmayzeh, and comprises a team of 15 from a range of disciplines. Together they work on annual collections of furniture and products sold online and stocked in key global retailers; bespoke commissions of furniture and accessories; collaborations with global furniture manufacturers; interior design concepts and services; artworks, installations and jewelry commissions.

Photo Credit Aya Saleh

Source: Galerie Tanit
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ÉTAT DE SIÈGE AT GALERIE TANIT
Thomas Trad is a product designer from Beirut fascinated with manufacturing processes, craftsmanship, and the natural beauty of materials. He attended London’s Central Saint Martins and the Suikoushya International Craft School in Kyoto, and has worked with the world-renowned studios Fredrikson Stallard and Michael Anastassiades. Over the many years of this education he developed a twin passion for traditional and contemporary techniques alike, which he now brings to bear in his native Beirut, where he returned in 2016 to found his own design studio. Trad’s aesthetic is one of both organic and abstract shapes—one that unites the pleasurably familiar with forms of challenging ingenuity. Ever at work refining his techniques and pushing the boundaries of what can be said with furnishings, Trad has, in three years, created an extraordinary portfolio—striking, yet subtle, pieces of remarkable beauty. Coupled with his experimental approach to materials, textures, and finishes, this inexhaustible search for the unexpected and beautiful in contemporary furniture has earned Trad a reputation as one of the most impressive emerging designers in Beirut.

Photo Credit Elige Abou Youness

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État de Siège goes back on the evolution of seating from the 1960’s until today through the eyes of 20 Lebanese designers. Curated by Joy Mardini, the group show is on view at Galerie Tanit until the 25th of June. Scenography by Rabih Koussa.

Installation Shot. Photo Credit Aya Saleh
Installation Shot. Photo Credit Aya Saleh

Curatorial Statement
Throughout history, designers and architects have reflected around the idea of seating and the many shapes and purposes it can bear. After all, wether Egyptian, gothic or contemporary, they are all the same; they are all an invitation to have a seat, a conversation, they are all small sculptures. And in a way, this makes them all comparable.

Each one of them tells you something about the person who created it, the era it was created in, and the society that shaped it. Like an immersion in the history of modern architecture, it’s like looking at buildings from a very close point of view.

Installation Shot, Credit Aya Saleh Courtesy Galerie Tanit
Installation Shot, Credit Aya Saleh Courtesy Galerie Tanit

Designers: 200Grs. Rana Haddad and Pascal Hachem, Anastasia Nysten, Bernard Khoury, Bokja, Carla Baz, Carlo Massoud, david/nicolas, Exil Collective, Georges Mohasseb for Studio Manda, Jean Louis et Mado Mellerio, Joe Naaman, Karen Chekerdjian, Khalil Khouri, Marc Baroud, Mary-Lynn & Carlo, Maurice Bonfils, Studio Nada Debs, Sami El Khazen, 1millimetre | Sara Jaafar, Thomas Trad.

Meet the designers and explore their designs in the above gallery.

The exhibition is on view at Galerie Tanit until the 25th of June, 2022.

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