About Us
Fragmenta is a cultural platform rooted in the Eastern Mediterranean. Founded by Nour Najem and Guilaine Elias, it brings together designers, craftspeople, researchers, cultural institutions, industry and communities through exhibitions, research, publications, and public programs.
Each edition focuses on a material, object, or cultural practice from the region. Research develops through conversations, fieldwork, archival study, and collaboration, and becomes exhibitions and other forms of public work.
Fragmenta is interested in how materials and making connect people, places, and histories, and in how this knowledge can continue to develop through contemporary practice.
Our Approach
Every Fragmenta edition begins with research.
We work with designers, craftspeople, manufacturers, researchers, cultural institutions, and communities to investigate a subject from different perspectives.
The research can lead to exhibitions, publications, public programmes, and collaborative projects. The process continues through the Fragmenta Archive, where research and documentation remain publicly accessible beyond each edition.
The Editions
Each Fragmenta edition focuses on a different aspect of the Eastern Mediterranean’s material culture.
N°1 · Stone
2025
The first edition explored stone through 51 designers who transformed offcuts and broken slabs from the Lebanese stone industry into functional works.
N°2 · Qamīs: Fragments of Dress
2026
The second edition explores the shirt through its materials, construction, history, and cultural context across the Eastern Mediterranean.
Fragmenta was founded and is co-curated by Nour Najem and Guilaine Elias. Together they founded the platform as a long-term framework for cultural research, design and material practice.
Nour Najem, co-creator and co-curator
Nour Najem is a designer, creative director, and social entrepreneur whose work spans fashion, design, and cultural projects. Her background in fashion annd experience working with materials, craft, annd sustainable design inform her approach to Fragmenta and its exploration of contemporary design through cultural research.
The Founders
Guilaine Elias, co-creator and co-curator
Guilaine Elias is a Beirut-based interior architect and designer whose work focuses on materiality, space, and place. Her practice brings together architecture, interiors, and material research, with particular interest in Levantine craft and heritage. At Fragmenta, she brings this spatial and material perspective to the development of exhibitions and collaborations.