The Hangar Exhibition
From storytelling in the city to expressing territories and landscapes, designers use different materials with various themes to introduce intriguing forms for the Hanger Exhibition 2019.
Dima Srouji
As a continuation of her ‘Hollow Forms’ project, Palestinian architect Dima Srouji presents a new collection of almost invisible vessels. This collection echoes and replicates the forms of actual vessels from the Levant, and takes their stories further by allowing the objects to “speak”. The project sheds light on archaeological glass artifacts from the Levant that have been displaced and are currently displayed behind glass vitrines and storage boxes, currently held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The display renders the vessels invisible, as they are in their current state, yet plays with their shadows to assert the mark they make on the ground.
Dima Srouji, a Palestinian architect working in the expanded context of interdisciplinary research-based projects. Her work explores intersectionalities of art and architecture through critical cartography, historic strata and spatial edges, and questions issues of politics and place.
Aymen Azzam
Ceramic artist and designer Aymen Azzam, presents his most recent collection of work that represents the metamorphosis of natural and unnatural forms, aiming to reach serenity and balance. The exhibited collection is inspired by naturally shaped pebbles forming harmony and equilibrium with their surroundings. Combined with color and texture, the pieces explore the tension of opposites; an interplay between modernism through candy-like colors and the representation of harsh metals and rough earth-like eruptions.
Najla El Zein
Exploring another, heavier material to express form, Beirut-born artist Najla El Zein presents a sculpture under her Seduction Series. This pair of forms begins detached from one another and through a series of sequential steps, gradually intertwines. Though abstract, the shapes can be read as symbolic of two people falling slowly into an embrace. The contours are hand-shaped, creating a nuanced sensual effect evoking the limbs and clefts of the human body. For Seduction, Pair 06, El Zein executes these shapes as a sculptural seat in red travertine.
Kais Al-Rawi & Julia Koerner
Inspired by in-depth research into Petra's columns, capitals and crowns, Julia Koerner and Kais Al-Rawi present Columns to Crowns, a collection of objects which bridge morphology, scale, and expression to showcase possibilities. With a special focus on the space between the human body and inhabitable space, the meaning of scale is investigated.
Julia Koerner and Kais Al-Rawi are architects based in Los Angeles, California. Their work ranges from the wearable scale of Oscar-winning costumes and 3D printed haute couture fashion, to mega-structures and facades for museums, airports, and stadia – specializing in digital technology that enables design and fabrication innovation.
This work was designed with the help of Kyoung Eun Park.
Lena Kassicieh
In a more playful manner, Jordanian-American artist Lena Kassicieh presents a collection of colorful ceramics under the title Unexpected Rain and New Kinds of Pollen. This collection is inspired by the various feelings you may have when traveling alone; when you're caught in the rain without an umbrella in the thick summer air, when you have a playful moment with a strangers' baby on the metro, when you have a language barrier and revert to presumed globally understood hand gestures to communicate.