FRAGMENTA is a pioneering design and sustainability initiative founded by Nour Najem and Guilaine Elias, with curation by Gregory Gatserelia. Rooted in circular economy principles, the project redefines discarded marble fragments as sources of cultural and creative potential.
The inaugural edition launched in September 2025 at the Najem Group factory in Beirut, a site that has been central to Lebanon’s marble industry since 1981. There, 49 artists and designers present works developed in close collaboration with the factory’s artisans and engineers, bridging contemporary design with decades of craft knowledge. Following its debut, FRAGMENTA will unfold as a travelling exhibition across the city throughout October, positioning itself as both a local and international platform for material innovation.
By reactivating fragments once considered waste, the initiative redefines value, proving that stone’s cultural and social resonance continues to evolve. In this conversation, we speak with curator Gregory Gatserelia (G.G) and founders Nour Najem (N.N) and Guilaine Elias (G.E) the guiding ideas behind FRAGMENTA, the role of Lebanon as both context and catalyst, and the ways in which stone can become a storyteller of memory, resilience, and renewal.
Gregory, with 49 designers from diverse backgrounds involved, what were the guiding principles in shaping a dialogue between individual creativity and the collective identity of FRAGMENTA?
G.G: For me it was about curiosity. I wanted to see how personal each interpretation could be when faced with the same material. Marble is ancient, heavy with history, but when each designer touched it, it became something intimate, new. What interests me is that individuality: how someone chooses, cuts, or reshapes marble tells you as much about them as about the stone itself.
When you put 49 of these voices together, the dialogue happens naturally. It’s not about uniformity, it’s about coexistence: about seeing how all these fragments of creativity can stand side by side and still speak as one collective. FRAGMENTA is about that tension: personal expression and shared identity living in the same space.
Can you tell us about your experience curating FRAGMENTA in Lebanon? How did it shape your approach to presenting stone as both material and narrative?
G.G: Marble is nature. Leaving blocks to sit unused felt wrong, almost like silencing part of the earth. In Lebanon, I saw an opportunity: instead of treating these fragments as waste, we could give them a second life, a new narrative.
Lebanon itself made this even more meaningful. It’s a place where history and fragility are everywhere, but also resilience and reinvention. The marble carried that same spirit: it was broken, but not finished. Working with it became a way of preserving nature, but also of reflecting Lebanon’s own rhythm of destruction and renewal. So for me stone became more than material; it became a storyteller. It holds memory, but it also invites imagination. That’s what FRAGMENTA was about: allowing designers to take what is left and turn it into something that speaks of both past and future.
Nour, how did this project start? And what can people expect when visiting FRAGMENTA locations and exhibitions?
N.N: FRAGMENTA began as an uncalculated idea. Gregory and we were walking through Najem Group’s factory when the first spark appeared, and from there it grew organically over several months. The project took shape through the doors Nazih Najem opened for us, and through the interpretations of the artists and designers who chose to join in. Momentum built in a beautiful way, it felt like a convergence of different paths and passions. Gregory brought his experience and instinct for working with designers, we carried our inclination toward craftsmanship, and Najem Group offered their extraordinary archives: decades of sculptural fragments and salvaged pieces from homes dismantled and destroyed in Beirut. What started as a passing idea evolved into a passion project we hold very close to our hearts.
When visiting FRAGMENTA, people can expect to be invited into a space of reflection, much like the one the artists and designers entered at the beginning of their creative journeys. The exhibitions speak to collective memory and unconscious heritage, to unexpected combinations and counterintuitive processes where form leads rather than function. At their core, they honour fragments and objects that were destined for another life, pieces shaped by time and nature, whose imperfections have only made them more compelling. Visitors will discover a wide spectrum of interpretations and solutions, and we hope they leave with a sense of wonder, along with new questions about how they might see the imperfect, broken, or discarded elements of their own everyday lives.
Guilaine, the project blends sustainability, heritage, and design. How do you see FRAGMENTA contributing to a wider cultural shift towards circularity in the regional design scene?
G.E: FRAGMENTA is rooted in the belief that fragments, whether sculptural remnants, discarded materials, or salvaged architectural pieces, carry value far beyond their intended life. By bringing these overlooked objects into dialogue with contemporary designers and artists, we’re not only extending their lifespan but reframing the way we perceive waste, damage, and imperfection. In that sense, sustainability here is inseparable from heritage: both ask us to look back in order to move forward. Circularity today is an environmental imperative. For our first edition, we chose to work with stone precisely because it is one of the most sustainable and enduring materials there is. Stone embodies time and memory, yet it also resists disposability.
By reinterpreting fragments of it, we wanted to show that circularity can be poetic, grounded in both ecology and culture.In a world increasingly governed by AI, algorithms, and the pursuit of flawless surfaces, we believe it is more urgent than ever to bring imperfection and nature to the forefront. FRAGMENTA does this by celebrating what is irregular, broken, or weathered, and showing that these qualities hold their own kind of beauty and truth.In the regional design scene, where access to new materials is often difficult and costly, FRAGMENTA proposes an alternative: to create from what already exists around us. If the project encourages even a few designers or visitors to reconsider the potential of what they might otherwise discard, then it has already contributed to a cultural shift, one that brings us closer to circularity, while staying deeply connected to place, memory, and the environment we share.
Location: Beirut, Lebanon.
Date: 18 September until 31 October 2025.
