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Dive into the visionary world of Rana Beiruti, as she explores the intersection of art, architecture, and design. Through compelling exhibitions like 'Re-rooting,' where she illuminates pressing issues in Jordan, from water politics to extractive building practices. Discover her curated collections, like 'Departures,' where Jordanian designers redefine tradition, crafting contemporary marvels rooted in the earth.
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Rana Beiruti is an independent curator and consultant in the creative industries, with a studio based in Amman, Jordan.
Our studio operates as both a curatorial research practice and a creative consultancy, engaging simultaneously in studying the diverse cultural landscapes of the Arab region, and building them.
CURATORIAL STUDIO
Working closely with both emerging and established artists, designers, and performers, our work manifests in various formats: curated exhibitions, installations, collections, cultural programs, publications, and spaces for artistic residency, pedagogy, and experimentation.
These projects are a blend of self-initiated or research-driven endeavors, as well as engagements that respond to the world around us and serve to conceptualize, translate, and make visible overlooked, and often intricate, narratives and ideas.
The Hangar Exhibition at Amman Design Week 2019. Photo by Edmund Sumner.
Our research in regional craft practices underpins our curatorial work and our commitment to promoting better land practices and ecology.
Central to our practice is the notion of craft; the transformative process by which materials harvested from the earth become the objects and spaces that define us. Through craft, art, and design, we come to better understand our own cultural, collective, and individual identities.
Our process is therefore driven by a deep understanding of land-based and social practices, and how local geographies define the interplay between acts of making and acts of being.
Course: Native Plants 101, organized in collaboration with Tayyūn Research Studio, 2020.
Our portfolio encompasses a diverse range of projects, including exhibition design, branding, and cultural programming in food and performing arts.
Exhibition: Material Innovation, 2019.
We work with governments and arts institutions in the region to develop culturally and economically rooted institutional models, programs, and structures.
CREATIVE INDUSTRY AND INSTITUTION BUILDING
As consultants in the creative industries, we advise on national and independent institution building, creative strategy, programming, audience building, and the development of the creative sector. With extensive research and reporting on the design sector in Jordan and the wider region, our insights inform strategic decision-making.
Our previous and current clients include The Royal Hashemite Court, Jordan Strategy Forum, Qatar Museums, Darat al Funun - The Khalid Shoman Foundation, Ayla Residential Oasis, GIZ, UNDP Palestine, the Goethe-Institut Amman, Columbia University Middle East Research Center (CUMERC) - Studio-X Amman.
AMMAN DESIGN WEEK
Most notably, Rana Beiruti co-founded and directed Amman Design Week, a design and architecture biennial consisting of large-scale curated exhibitions, commissioned installations, talks, workshops, and cultural events.
In 2018, she founded platform27, a residency space in Amman that operated until 2021, under which she established a creative space and residency program for designers in Jordan called takween.
Exhibition: Jordan Script Routes, curated by Huda AbiFares for Amman Design Week 2019.
Tasmeem Doha, 2018. Photo courtesy of VCU Arts - Qatar.
TALKS AND WORKSHOPS
Rana Beiruti has also given talks and workshops, including at MISK Art Institute, Darat al Funun, Fantasmeem, Harvard GSD, American University of Cairo, Tasmeem Doha (Virginia Commonwealth University for the Arts Doha), Milan Design Week, and Beirut Design Week, among others.
She was also a jury member for several prizes, including the Omrania CSBE Student Award for Architecture (twelfth cycle).
BOARD AND ADVISORY POSITIONS
Rana Beiruti served as a member of the Board of Directors for Beit al Bawadi in 2022 and is currently an advisory board member at Darat al Funun - The Khalid Shoman Foundation (2022-Present).