Lea KayrouzResearcher-Architectcollaboration since 2017Lea Kayrouz is an architect and researcher at TU Delft's Faculty of Architecture, focusing on ownership patterns and weathering in the Levant. Over the past few years, she has worked at architectural offices in Spain, including Ensamble Studio and RBTA. Lea is a main collaborator on most projects, particularly on research and concept development. Alex Tzortsis de PazArchitectcollaboration since 2018
Alex Tzortsis de Paz is a London-based architectural designer who has worked at firms including Purcell Architects and Foster + Partners after graduating. Since 2018, he has also been a lecturer at Leeds School of Architecture and Middlesex University, focusing on design-led projects. Alex is a key collaborator, visualizing and devising concepts for various projects. Lama ZoueinCreative Directorcollaboration since 2016
Lama Zouein is a creative director and multidisciplinary designer specializing in art direction, branding, and food styling. With over a decade of experience, she has worked across France, Switzerland, Lebanon, London, and Amsterdam, collaborating with Nathalie Harb on visual identity creation and scenographies.
www.zoueinlama.comJoseph KaiIllustrator-Artistcollaboration since 2009
Joseph is a Lebanese comics author currently living in Paris, exploring the realms of realistic and speculative fiction. A member of the Samandal comic collective, he contributes as an editor and comic author. Joseph collaborates on scenography, design projects, and visual identities, with a focus on the intersection of space, illustration, and storytelling. www.josephkai.bigacrtel.com
photo by Stefano MarchioniniGascia OuzounianSonic Theoristcollaboration since 2017
Gascia Ouzounian is a sonic theorist at Oxford University, where she leads Sonorous Cities (SONCITIES). She commissioned Silent Room V.04 for the London Festival of Architecture. Our collaborations include Urban Sound and the Politics of Memory, Designing Sonic Refuge, and Acoustic Cities: London & Beirut. www.soncities.org
photo by Mane HovanissyanZoukak Theatre Companycollaboration since 2009Zoukak was established in 2006 as a horizontal theatre collective committed to artistic practice as a form of social and political engagement. Each performance addresses issues that challenge the status quo, resonating with the context in which it operates and beyond. Zoukak has performed and collaborated both regionally and internationally. Beyond artistic production, they integrate theatre into broader frameworks of social engagement, therapy, and education. The collective also fosters artistic dialogue and reflection, aiming to cultivate a supportive environment for artistic development and provide training opportunities for local artists in Lebanon and overseas. I collaborate with Zoukak as a scenographer, while they contribute to my work through text writing and dramaturgy. Together, we thread a conversation where our research intersects
in the narrative potential of spaces, both on stage and behind the scenes.
www.zoukak.orgGerard GormleyMusiciancollaboration since 2024
Gerard Gormley is an Irish composer and sound artist exploring sound in relation to space, place, and architecture. Our collaborations include Silent Room V.04, a nomadic sonic architecture engaging cities through sound and listening, featured at the London Festival of Architecture. Youmna SabaMusiciancollaboration since 2022
Youmna is a musician, composer, and musicologist, with a focus on the resonances of instruments and space within different sonic and musical contexts. With five albums to her name (the latest being Wishah, released on Touch in 2023), she has collaborated with musicians like Kamilya Jubran, Mike Cooper, and the Neuen Vocalsolisten. She is the laureate of the first sound residency at the Quai Branly Museum, Paris (2022-2023), and has also been awarded a music residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (2020-2021). Youmna's collaboration explores the microscopic and inaudible in Resonant Shell and later the concept of making the territory archive heard.
www.youmnasaba.com
Pamela ErbettaArt historian-Consultant-Gardenercollaboration since 2006
Pamela Erbetta is an art historian and artistic consultant based in Palermo, Sicily. With a background in museum installations and auction houses, she co-founded the contemporary art gallery Francesco Pantaleone Arte Contemporanea. She is currently developing a hospitality project centered around the reconstruction of a Mediterranean garden. Pamela was my gallerist and is currently a key collaborator on Silent Room for Agrigento Capitale 2025. Loft - Rosemary, Chantal and Beatrice Harb Fashion and textiles, Mother and sisterhoodcollaboration since 2009
Loft, a family fashion business, was founded by my mother—a space where textiles, threads, and patterns come to life. Since the economic crisis in Beirut, it has shifted to focus on local, sustainable production of womenswear. Now led by my sister Chantal, with Beatrice, costume designer-ceramist and I as satellites in its orbit, Loft continues to grow. Together, we collaborate weaving our shared vision and sense of complicity on matresses, blankets, tents and other fabric work. Adriana CoboArchitect-Researcher-Educatorcollaboration since 2013
Adriana Cobo Corey is an architect, educator and spatial practitioner. She works on architecture for social purpose with projects sited within the urban public realm. Her research practice on performance architecture focuses on the connection between taste and class in architecture and urban design.
She is subject leader for ethical practice in BA Architecture and associate lecturer for the MA Architecture at Central Saint Martins, were
she convenes The Ethical Table, a platform for discussing ethics in creative practice. Adriana has been a consultant, editor and critical reference in a durational conversation since our time as students in the MA Scenography at Central Saint Martin's, UAL.
www.researchers.arts.ac.uk Dietmar Uberbacher Natural resource management specialistcollaboration since 2018
Dietmar Ueberbacher is a natural resource management specialist with extensive experience in developing innovative initiatives across climate change, agriculture, energy, and environmental sectors. Over the past decades, he has collaborated with organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Italian Development Cooperation, and various public and private entities across the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Central Asia, and Small Island Developing States. Our collaboration began with the Urban Hives and now extends across most of our projects, focusing on integrating sustainability principles to ensure lasting environmental and social impact.
Danya HammoudChoreographer-Performer collaboration since 2023
Danya Hammoud is a Lebanese choreographer and dancer born in 1981 in Beirut, Lebanon. Living in Marseille since 2019, she was Associate Artist at La Maison CDCN Uzès (2019-2022). The core of her work is found in the movement of bodies and is developed through dance practice, choreography, writing, sound composition and the moving image.
Her choreography works have been presented in several international venues and theatre festivals, in Lebanon, Egypt, Germany, Greece, France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland and South-Africa. In parallel to her performances, inscribed in close relation to our place as citizens, with concern for the political, economic and social contexts in which we evolve, she has been leading workshops since 2007, where she develops an analytic approach of the movement. Danya and I have woven a conversation through our works, exploring the complexities of occupying and inhabiting space—her focus on the body’s relationship to space and mine on how space itself is inhabited.
Nadim AsfarArtist-Photographer-Moving Imagecollaboration since 2017
Nadim Asfar is a French-Lebanese artist based in Paris and Beirut, working with photography and video. His work has been shown internationally, including at Paris Photo, the New Museum, Kunst-Werk Institute, Sursock Museum, Mucem, and the Institut du Monde Arabe.In 2014, he was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres distinction by the French Ministry of Culture. His work is part of collections at Fotomuseum Winterthur, Musée de l’Elysée, Saradar Foundation, and the CCA.
Asfar’s early work explores experimental image-making, from photograms to capturing the movements of passers-by in Beirut. His projects, Hyperimages and Habiter le jour, set Beirut as a laboratory for exploring post-war life along with the language of photography. Since 2015, his ongoing project Experiencing the Mountain shifts focus to Lebanese landscapes, merging the precision of a land surveyor with the sensibility of a Romantic landscape painter, in an attempt to demystify a landscape at once arid and fertile, long-domesticated as a symbol of nation and tradition in Lebanese painting.
Nadim has been capturing portraits of my work and myself, woven from deep-rooted exchanges on work, being, and the shifts that shape us.
Fouad BechwatiAcoustics and Audio Specialist collaboration since 2017
Few can claim they were “born to do what they love,” but Fouad is one of the lucky ones. From his childhood days in his father’s company, ELTEK (pro audio distributors), experimenting with mixers and welding audio cables, to experiencing the grandeur of the Baalbek and Beit El Din festivals, he found his calling. He pursued this passion in the UK, earning a BSc (First Honours) in Acoustics from the University of Salford, where he focused on the acoustic simulation software ODEON for his final project. He later completed his PhD at the same university. In 2009, Fouad returned to Lebanon and founded 21dB, an Acoustic and Audio Consultancy firm. Since then, 21dB, with a branch in Dubai since 2014, has been creating tailored sound solutions and collaborating on art and design projects globally.
Fouad has contributed his expertise in acoustics to the Silent Room project from its inception, enriching each iteration with his deep knowledge of sound design and spatial acoustics.