“Under Design Lebanon” is a group exhibition curated by Ghassan Salameh for Isola Design District at the 2023 edition of Salone del Mobile featuring Lebanon based designers, designer collectives, traditional and contemporary craftsmen and craft supporting associations. The presentation’s main objective is to offer a realistic mapping and projection on the currently still functioning bodies under the exceptional conjunction of social, political and economic crises that Lebanon is undergoing, dropping the aspect of design as a commodity that is dissociated with its local and global contexts and responsibilities and saving what is important.

The importance of the crafts and design sectors in the CCI (Cultural & Creative Industries) in the context of Lebanon have a significant importance where small and medium scale design, crafts and artisan specialized businesses, remain the main sources of income for many families and preserve the continuity of this specific class of labor that is independent and operates within its own micro-economy which when operating at this scale, allows deeper and more meaningful connections with the immediate social ecosystem and ecology presenting fields for innovation in techniques, materials, resource preservation and relevant object adapted to the current reality.

This multi-medium group exhibition will feature different categories of exhibition materials divided between literary & research content, digital & video materials, infographics, material explorations constituting an overview mapping of some the active entities in the Design & Crafts sector where the visitor can dive deeper into the ecosystem and learn more about each of those institutions. This mapping will be presented on a 3D printed recycled-plastic structure designed and produced by Post Industrial Crafts.
The mapping will be detailing different categories and of the ecosystem varying from traditional crafts such as L’Artisan Du Liban, Mashghal and Badguer, contemporary crafts and manufacturing such as Beirut Makers and Damj Design, design education such as the American University of Beirut (AUB) Architecture and Design Department (ArD) and Dongola Books Architecture Series, cultural and design consultancies such as the Khanzine and Babylon agency as well as sector supporting non profit organizations such as Minjara, Diwan of Culture, Design & Innovation (DCDI and Warchee.

The other part of the exhibition will feature physical products and furniture pieces including:

Minjara, a furniture production initiative supporting the local wood industry in Lebanon, will present three furniture pieces demonstrating the carpentry’s sector different skills combining traditional and contemporary techniques such as hand carved wood and rattan weaving.

Exil, a collective of designers working within self set guidelines of local feasibility, waste reduction and ethical production will be presenting the products of 9 of the collective’s designers: Youssef Bassil, Shaha Raphael, Sayar & Gharibeh, Rania Abillama, Paola Sakr, Marc Baroud, Antoine Guekjian, Tatiana Akl and the results of a workshop the collective lead at Tumo Studios in Yerevan, Armenia.

Beirut Makers, an open collective using digital fabrication, will present models and prototypes of some of the collectives such as their laser cut steel wood-stove designed to keep protesters warm as well as a book collated for this exhibition documenting all their previous exhibitions and products.