Incollect Magazine - Issue 9

Incollect Magazine 17 “24 years ago when I came back here to Lebanon everyone said to me ‘Nobody likes crafted objects in the Middle East,’ laughs Nada Debs, the superstar Middle Eastern designer. Coming from Japan, where she experienced its ancient appreciation for handcrafted works and reverence for true master craftsmen, she was eager to explore Middle Eastern craft traditions. Her search led her to Damascus to see the famous mother-of-pearl inlay workshops. “It was so magnificent I said to myself, ‘I have to find a way to make all this appealing to our generation!’ So I asked the craftsman, ‘Can you do this work but more minimal, some pearl inlay triangles on a bedside table, a basic design? It was very zen. Then it all just took on a life of its own.” Once Debs started blending traditional mother-of-pearl inlay with contemporary designs she realized there were many other traditional crafts in the Middle East she could incorporate in similar fusions, and each collection since is a study of a regional craft practice. She continues to create combinations of materials in contemporary design forms to reimagine and support these indigenous traditions, and in doing so, she and her artisans have become custodians of craft, preserving ancient knowledge while creating multicultural expressions with 21st-century appeal. The results are highly resonant, relevant, timeless objects ranging from her “Stitched Horizons” collection of six pebble chairs with curved back panels in intricate cane embroidery, produced by Palestinian embroiderers exiled in Lebanon, to intriguing juxtapositions of Middle Eastern parquetry and marquetry practices with playful contemporary forms in her “Coming to Life” collection. Debs was born in Beirut but grew up in Japan before heading off to study design in the United States at the Rhode Island School of Design, then moving to London before eventually returning to Left: Coming To Life Side Table #2, 2022. Solid walnut and mother of pearl marquetry. Right: Gandhara Carapace #3, #2, and #1 Stool/Side Table, 2023. Lapis lazuli, amazonite and marble inlay.