The London Design Festival is well underway with some exciting new projects on display – including an intriguing new installation from Beirut’s Najila El Zein: The Wind Portal.
Located at the junction of the new and old sections of the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum, where Middle East art has been featured in the past, The Wind Portal is comprised of no fewer than 5,000 handcrafted paper windmills.
Dangling from a succession of strings, the windmills stretch to a soaring height of eight meters, creating a dramatic transition between remnants of medieval London and the contemporary museum.
“Our intervention focuses on the transition between two spaces, an inside and outside space, and acts as a walk-in installation where the proximity between the installation and the visitor creates a direct interaction,” says El Zein, whose dazzling project was commissioned by the 2013 London Design Festival.
“The sensory passage is enhanced with an integrated wind system, a play between sound, light, shade and the windmills blowing through.”
“They almost sound like running water – an unintended side effect perhaps, and they are at once beautifully playful and natural,” according to the Design Week curators, who gushed about the project on a list of highlights released to the press and public.
El Zein grew up eating croissants in Paris, she says, and eventually received a Masters in Interior Architecture from the Ecole Camando in Paris.
One year after opening the Najila El Zein Design Studio in Geitawi, the designer took a position as instructor at the American University of Beirut in the Architecture and Graphic Design Department last year.
Well known for her 6302 spoons exhibit that appeared at DesignDaysDubai with Smogallery, El Zein is one of Lebanon’s leading designers.
And now she is stirring up a whirlwind at one of the world’s most prestigious design festivals.
Author: Tafline Laylin
As a tour leader who led “eco-friendly” camping trips throughout North America, Tafline soon realized that she was instead leaving behind a trail of gas fumes, plastic bottles and Pringles. In fact, wherever she traveled – whether it was Viet Nam or South Africa or England – it became clear how inefficiently the mandate to re-think our consumer culture is reaching the general public. Born in Iran, raised in South Africa and the United States, she currently splits her time between Africa and the Middle East. Tafline can be reached at tafline (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
