Nestled between the historic quarter and the burgeoning art districts of Beirut stands the unassuming workshop of Nada Debs. Here, under the warm glow of industrial lamps, master craftswomen in white aprons gently lay mother-of-pearl tesserae onto ebony wood panels, each minute sliver poised to become part of a larger tapestry. It was in this sanctum of silence and focus—far removed from the bustle of Milan Design Week or the glare of Instagram’s global stage—that Debs first understood her true calling: to fuse ancient Eastern crafts with clean, contemporary forms.

It was in 2006, on a stifling afternoon in Riyadh, that Dr. Ahmed Mater first truly understood his patient: the rapidly transforming Saudi landscape. Fresh from years as an emergency-room physician, he surveyed the city’s grid of concrete and steel, its gleaming malls rising beside crumbling mud-brick neighborhoods, and felt a jolt akin to a medical diagnosis. The skin of his homeland—its built environment—was showing the first signs of systemic distress. How, he wondered, could he translate this cultural fever into a language people could really feel? He put down his stethoscope and picked up his camera.

Christine Tohmé has spent nearly three decades forging platforms where art, ideas, and discourse converge—right in the heart of Beirut, a city that itself is both canvas and crucible. Born in February 1964, she came of age amid Lebanon’s civil war, a period that taught her firsthand the fragility of public space and the urgency of dialogue. After earning her BA in English Literature at the American University of Beirut (1984) and, later, an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London (2007), she returned to her wounded hometown with a clear mission: to build an institution where artists could make work, thinkers could debate it, and communities could gather to reimagine their shared future.

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