MINI’s 60th Anniversary at Beirut Design Week

DESIGN AND NOSTALGIA This year, time and its fluctuation play an integral part of Beirut Design Week’s theme, Design & Nostalgia. To the aware eye, the past eras have always left their mark on the surface of design. As software developed, our minds expanded and our visions sought what we thought would propel us forward, and we slowly left the past behind. This past now witnesses the speed of our daily lives, and with it a lurking longing for immersions in real experiences. We seek the abstract sense of collectiveness to overshadow our distraction from the roots of our identities, from the past that is integral to our present and the future. Or is it? As creative people, writers, artists, designers, architects, actors and most importantly thinkers embedded in their present state, this year’s theme unites us in bringing back what used to be, acknowledging its value and utilizing it for the purpose of gradually creating new visions and establishments, etching new statements based on those past, carving new shapes from those forgotten and departed. Must we build on past grounds? Should we relate to that which used to unite us? Does the spectrum of design and creation share common ancestors? What do we owe the past? Nostalgia is not a feeling that leaves us dewy-eyed, but one that aims to inspire our creations this year. Be it in the integration of traditional tile patterns into jewellery or the creation of wickerwork interior accessories, the Lebanese heritage is present in the work of today’s designers. The fashion of the nineties, the return of the fanny pack and the bold colours that we don on are proof of the arrival of an era in design that reminisces.