A painter designing a carpet? Only for one cause: One Carpet for Love!
One Carpet for Love is an initiativeby IwanMaktabi Third Generation that brings together 8 Lebanese and international designers and gathers them around a cause. One Carpet for Love weaves societal threads into creatively innovative carpet designs whose proceeds go to organizations that are actively working towards the betterment of the Lebanese society.
Winner of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize, Marwan Sahmaraniis one of the 8 designers who took part of the initiative, putting his art at the service of the community. Sahmarani spends half the year in Beirut and the other half in the smallMediterranean mountain village of Tarbena, Spain, which hiswork reflects.His textured paintings have abstract, expressionist tendencies butare rooted in the early traditions of landscape painting.
For "The Crying Man", Sahmarani drawsheavy inspiration from Picasso's Guernica, a painting that isparticularly close to his heart; Sahmarani sees it as representingan analogous situation to the violence he has witnessedthroughout his life in Lebanon. "My work is another way of seeingthe reality of the region", he says. "I hope my carpet contributes to stopping violence against women and children all over Lebanon", he added.
The 7 other designers taking part of the initiative are:Bokja, Rana Salam, Orient 499, Maria Group, Karim Chaya,Karen Chekerjianand Mohamed Maktabi. They merged creativity with goodwill, out of conviction that giving back to the Lebanon they love would turn their country into a better place to live.
3 carpets have been sold so far, whose proceeds went towards the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, the Lebanese Red Cross, and Association d'EntraideProfessionnelle (AEP)". The other NGO's on the list are: Skoun, Lebanese Autism Society, Braveheart, Roads for Life, Kafa, Amel, AFEL, Himaya, Resto du Coeur, SOS, Chance, Tamanna.
