Old magazines, used bottles, tins, and many newspapers were in piles a few weeks before Christmas. 247square aimed at transforming what was once trash to joyful Christmas decorations.
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straws wraps and bottle labels are transformed into the above decorations |
The idea behind it was to reflect on the birth (and life) of Jesus to produce decorations that are within that spirit. The message is one of love and peace regardless of class, ethnicity, and even religion.
So we wanted
to make the decorations as accessible as we can to the public, and made
everything out of recycled materials to show how the beautiful can come out of common
daily material.
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a flower out of plastic bottles |
We took some of those decorations indoors, mainly at AUB Bechtel Building and Cafe Ta Marbouta. The rest of the decorations were plastered around the streets of Hamra.
Unfortunately, for whatever unbeknownst reason, the
decorations disappeared the next day. Within less than 24 hours, they were gone.
Who and why, we do not know, but the joy in the voice of the passerby’s who
were complimenting the project was more than enough to make our project worthwhile.
Merry Christmas everyone
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boxes, newspapers | decorations around Hamra, Beirut |
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tins (cocacola, mirenda, pepsi, sevenup) | decorations around Hamra, Beirut |
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magazines, old books and papers | decorations around Hamra, Beirut |
Merry Christmas everyone
Project Organizer: Anastasia Matar
Project Members:
research
and ideas: Anastasia Matar, Alaa Kabalan
sketching
and experimentation: Saba Sadr, AyaKrisht, Anastasia Matar, Alaa Kabalan, helped by Elizabeth Matar, Zeina Shaaban, Maria Mouteirek, Layla Smaili
mass
productions: Alaa Kabalan, Shahine
Kabalan, Wafaa Safi, Ramy Kabalan, Anastasia Matar, Saba Sadr, Aya Krisht, Zeina Shaaban.
finalizing
and hanging: Alaa Kabalan, Saba Sadr,
Zeina Shaaban, Anastasia Matar
A wonderful shoutout to the glorious Majida el-Roumi, whose
music we used in our video, for her retweeting our Christmas sentiments.