The Lebanese are defying their country’s harsh status quo by riding on their own wave of creativity and entrepreneurship, with their minds and eyes in the future they want for Lebanon.
In that, their known resilience exceeds their desire to survive and goes further to the next level, that of building, innovating, and progressing.
Among these notable ventures is the Exil Collective, a creative platform promoting designs made in Lebanon by collaborating with talented and creative designers to recreate the Art scene.
Its main mission is to produce designs and art that can be affordable to anyone, not just the “one percent” and to encourage the younger generation to know more about the industry and maybe help them be future creators themselves.
In that, this premier product design incubator is redefining the art scene in Lebanon and the Middle East.
Exil Collective was founded by two former students of the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA): Tatiana Akl, holder of a Master’s Degree in Fashion Studies, and Youssef Bassil, who studied Product Design.
“I think that being a designer in Lebanon is a real challenge – but it also has some advantages,” Bassil explained. “And up to this day, the challenges and advantages we have were never fully harnessed, rendering products of Lebanese design unreachable to the majority of people.”
Challenging the economic crisis in Lebanon, this project was started to help creative Lebanese produce and design new artistic and local concepts.
Currently, more than 20 designers are working at Exil Collective to produce local pieces of art with the help of local artisans and local talents.
Here’s a look at some sleek pieces of these Lebanese designers:
