Sara Badr : Creative Collaboration
31 Décembre 2002
“I believe a lot in teamwork, in alternativity, in the new dimension of collaboration in the field of creation”, affirms Sara Badr, a trained graphic designer and designer. Two areas that are quite similar, since it is, after all, a question of two- and three-dimensional architecture.
Her basic concept: “To create a useful object, which nevertheless has a playful side, which gives off poetry, but without it being a gadget. This is how it can survive time.”
Second credo: mobility above all. That is to say, making objects that are easy to move, flexible, which can take on several aspects alternately. Like this floor lamp made of sheet metal, cubic in shape and with windows, which allow you to regulate the intensity of the light. Or this coffee table in sheet metal and central wooden top, which can be assembled and disassembled as you wish. And which can be placed in an interior as well as in a garden.
It will be understood: in design, Sara Badr seeks neither the purely decorative nor the purely functional, but a certain aesthetic or utilitarian dimension. Her creations are often born out of her own needs. “I needed a bench in my house, I had the idea to design one, in sheet metal, with the left and right ends in the form of a magazine rack.” Ditto for a reading chair with a backrest ending in a tray where you can put your books. A piece that she designed and manufactured in two versions. The first with a steel structure and a backrest in jute straps. The second, more sophisticated, in stainless steel and leather.
She submits her ideas to her fellow collaborators, develops them and realizes them with their help. With Hala Khoury, designer of textile objects, she has developed a series of poufs, cushions, place mats, coasters, travel bags (cases for dirty linen, shoes, etc.) in screen-printed fabric. “The pattern comes a bit randomly, which makes each piece unique,” says the young woman, one of Ingres’s violin painting. And more precisely the graphics applied to objects and furniture.
Sheet metal and lacquered wood
With Karim Begdache, a young architect designer, she designed a line called Artline.com, specific to the gallery of contemporary furniture and objects Artishow, of which she is one of the associated owners.
Together, they play in their creations on the contrast of materials, harsh and sophisticated, cold and warm. Coffee tables, dressing tables, boxes, benches… They have created a small collection of furniture in sheet metal and wood, brown or red lacquered. But also accessories and various objects, such as oriental tea cups (in blown glass on molded aluminum plates), incense holders, key rings, or even ashtrays, innovative in their shape, pots of flowers (in glazed or painted ceramic) spilled on a plate (small of course), which retains odors and thus spares non-smokers.
“Instead of being penalized by the lack of materials and industrial techniques in Lebanon, we have sought to be challenged by this lack”, concludes this young woman who likes to create as a duo.
Visit card
After studying graphic art at EFET in Paris, followed by an artistic director position at Revue Noire, a French art magazine, Sara Badr returned to Lebanon in the early 90s, she collaborated with the creation of the design of Femme magazine and ensured the artistic direction. Then she founded her own graphic firm,One-Off, before also embarking on the adventure of Artishow, this space, on rue Baroudy, in Ashrafieh, where the creations of young Lebanese designers and stylists are presented.
