Hedayat Reda The lights are dim, the room is glowing, there is a warmth and softness in the air. An electric feeling of presence courses through me, like anything could happen at any moment. Whispers of the past echo. A sense of a forgotten home takes over. I am rapt in attention, I am listening.
Kahhal 1871’s “Brush it Under the Rug” exhibit is an ode to a day and age that feels both incredibly new and long-forgotten. The type of showcase where you step into a time and place and immediately feel transported into a full sensory experience, it is littered with thoughtful and whimsical elements that bring a unique experience to design and the concept of merging old and new.
Featuring raw and unfiltered work by seven regional designers: Ramzi Makram Ebeid, Emma James, Kanjo, Yasmina Makram, Karim Mekhtigian, Bosaina El Kahhal and Mohamed Fares, this exhibit asks the artists to delve deep into their psyche and look at what they have “brushed under the rug”.
Ramzi Makram-Ebeid- Fight or Flight
“My rug is about anxiety and how we always try to show a calmer side of ourselves, and yet a lot of people struggle with anxiety. There is some very good anxiety that gets you motivated, energized, focused. That is the type of anxiety that can be celebrated, and there is bad anxiety that depletes you,” Ramzi explains to me, gesturing to his nuanced deep scarlet and burgundy creation, which features Coptic symbols of peace and evil– an homage to his heritage and turath.
“For my work I looked at MRI scans of the brain. We took the brain scans and photoshopped it over the design,” he gestures to the left-hand side of the rug. The brain scan in question shows how active the brain gets for people who struggle with this mental challenge, one Ramzi himself has struggled with all his life. Ramzi’s design takes a positive spin on anxiety, depicting the triumph of good anxiety over bad anxiety, in the symbolism of the bird ruling over the snake.
Mohamed Kahhal’s vision for the exhibit was exactly this vulnerability and realness: “We wanted the designers to create rugs that reflect what they’ve brushed under the rugs over the years. We tend to see people on social media talking very highly about themselves, but we don’t get to see the other side: the struggles they’ve been through to get there,” he describes the naissance of this project– his personal brainchild and one in a series of events and collaborations made to put Kahhal on the global map.
“The carpets are very personal to the designers so we gave them the freedom to create something to reflect themselves-. For example, Fares wanted a carpet that moves, so we created a carpet that moves.”
Mohamed Fares- Crucial Conversations
The carpet in question is a 3-dimensional masterpiece, with a pattern that resembles a flower, mixes vibrant shades of the rainbow, with more muted shades of black and grey. It reflects “battles of thought” and how they are manifested in shapes and textures, accurately portraying how versatile and nuanced the human mind and the human experience is.
Similarly, Bosaina El Kahhal’s– the Creative Director of Kahhal 1871– installation is a journey into the unconscious, via psychology. Composed of two disparate but similar carpets that use the Rorschach ink test as their foundation, Bosaina’s work is a testament to the universality of art.
“Primal Blue is the feminine, Primal Black is the masculine. She’s softer, more intuitive and kind of a butterfly. Primal black is more aggressive.”
Complementing Bosaina’s work is a collective effort of ink-blot designs that she posed as an exercise to the public at FCC.Paris. Accordingly, her personal design is encouraged by the thoughts and unconscious renderings of international exhibit-goers and brought home to this year’s CDD.
Bosaina Studio- Primal Instinct
“Generally as a person I’m an optimist. My attitude is always:“Khalas that’s how it is so may as well make the best of things”, but I think sometimes that flattens your actual emotion, so I really liked this ability to explore my hidden side,” Emma James, ray of sunshine and social butterfly, proclaims of her own two-part rug collection: Beneath the Same Sky.
An intricate envisioning of night and day and the cycles of the earth, Emma’s offering is multi-faceted and striking, the rugs supplemented with quotes and poems that spoke-to and moved her, inscribed by hand in her own handwriting.
“I had this idea to pull back a corner, so even in the darkest night you pull back a corner and the day will be there.”
Emma James- Beneath the Same Sky
Emma’s work is a love-letter to the act of endurance, and an honouring of the cosmos’ natural ebbs and flows.
“What do we hold onto in those really dark moments? The hands of our family and friends, maybe talismans or amulets, but over and above, what keeps you in some rhythm and keeps you rooted and grounded is that every day – could be the worst day, could be the best- there’ll be night, there’ll be day. So even if we feel floating, that natural circle progresses.”
The whole exhibit is complimented by Marmonil’s breathtaking slates of natural stone, grounding the artists’ work and giving the installations an earthen, natural air. Old family photos and Kahhal mementos litter the centre table, giving a personal touch to the story of a design house and allowing us to dwell on the collective experience of making art. Both Yasmina Makram and Karim Mekhtigian’s work is inspired by Egypt, from the circular and floral patterns of irrigation systems to Coptic palm motifs illustrated in humble brown, each one rendered with a tenderness that turns familiar landscapes into whispered memories. Kanjo, on the other hand, focuses on survival, and the idea of “brushing things under the rug” as a vital part of our journey as humans and as part of that which makes us stronger.
“Everything we make is the same way as our ancestors have made it before us. We use our crafts to create ideas, events, and concepts to take us global- in order to shed light on our heritage and traditions,” Mohamed Kahhal proudly proclaims as though holding a lantern to the past, inviting it to lead the way forward.
Check out Kahhal 1871’s exhibit in Heliopolis until November 29th.
