AYLA HIBRI

The chain: Toys, Metal Welders, Dreamers

Athens Design Forum presents Lebanese artist Ayla Hibri’s chain of thematic photographic essays—Toys, Metal Welders, and Dreamers. In their three-fold partition, the essays relay the transgression of matter into the praxis of authorship. Across the territories of Jordan, Eritrea, and beyond, Hibri navigates the thresholds between the particular and the universal, always attentive to laws of patterns and the acts of once undefined rituals.

In Toys, childhood becomes a site of entry into the psyche and fantasy of creation—a fluent survival mechanism forgotten with age. In the welding yards of Medeber, the rhythm of an ancient trade is embodied by masks that reveal a resilient form of masculine rite, identified by Hibri as “bending the physical world to their will.” As a cosmic epilogue, Dreamers isolates provisional zones of belonging to form a phenomenon: “architecture often resists the sleeper, yet exhaustion brings about a temporary truce,” evident in the transformation of public and private domains. Hibri’s photographic method acts as both microscope and telescope, assembling a cartography of intimacies and improvisations. An archive opens where the incidental forms a lasting testimony.

01: Toys (Jordan)

ATHENS DESIGN FORUM, KATERÍNA PAPANIKOLOPOULOS: How does your encounter with children form and project their visual depiction?

AYLA HIBRI: Documenting children is inherently magical. They are unpredictable. They have liberated and experimental self-awareness and reveal their emotions quickly and with ease. Adults are self-aware, concealing, and regimented. Children face the camera with a startling purity of motive—they are innocent. Fantasy is part of their reality and play is their language, skills we tragically relinquish with age.

KATERÍNA PAPANIKOLOPOULOS: The distance between the child (the protagonist) and the toy—how does the absence of interaction shift the narrative? What does the typology of toys reveal about societal structures and play?

AYLA HIBRI: While exploring a traditional Bedouin village on the outskirts of Ma'an, Jordan—nestled amidst the rugged beauty of desert rocky mountains—I encountered a group of joyful children, their eyes gleaming with excitement and curiosity. We exchanged greetings, and then I noticed their toy car and inquired about it. With immense pride, they explained that this is a car they had built with their father and eagerly demonstrated how they play with it. Made from basic materials like wires and cans, its wheels wobbled, its body bore dents, yet it was utterly captivating: an object of pure functionality and charm, unadorned yet perfect in its minimalism.

This beloved companion does more than offer comfort and entertainment—it acts as a cultural mirror, revealing the values, aspirations, and contradictions that inform our understanding of childhood—and society itself. Their creation embodied collaboration, problem-solving, and pride—where imagination converts scarcity into possibility.

02: Metal Welders & Masks (Eritrea)

KATERÍNA PAPANIKOLOPOULOS: The power of a series vs. an isolated image—how do first encounters shape perception?

AYLA HIBRI: A series moves through time and space. Where a single image suggests a thousand possible stories, a series tells one story with relentless clarity. Isolation invites interpretation; repetition demands reckoning. A first encounter sparks curiosity, but its repetition reveals a phenomenon—these repetitions forge cultural signatures, transmuting the exceptional into defining emblems.

“A series moves through time and space. Where a single image suggests a thousand possible stories, a series tells one story with relentless clarity.”

KATERÍNA PAPANIKOLOPOULOS: We see the presence and physicality of welders in external, public spaces – how are these depictions shaped by the resourcefulness of these impromptu masks?

AYLA HIBRI: Behind Asmara’s spice market, piles of scrap metal emerge like a second landscape, the pungent perfume of Berber spice yields to the tang of molten steel. Suddenly, you’re in Medeber: a sprawling workshop where welders move in rhythmic industry. Sparks dance in the searing heat as men breathe new life into discarded metal—reshaping frames, resurrecting appliances, bending the physical world to their will. Handcrafted face shields—square, rectangular, some cardboard with salvaged goggles, others cut from oil drums—adorn every worker. These masks, pragmatic armor to shield flying embers, also tell a personal story and style. Building one appears as a rite of passage—a viral tradition where necessity births identity. More than tools, they represent a shared identity among these resourceful craftsmen—a brotherhood that transforms scrap into value through skill and resilience.

KATERÍNA PAPANIKOLOPOULOS: How do masculinity, age, and labor intersect in the act of metal welding and protective artifacts such as masks? What qualities are intergenerational?

AYLA HIBRI: In Medeber’s welding yards, masculinity is both a performance and an inheritance, conveyed through labor-demanding strength, endurance, and expertise. Young and old work together, passing down techniques and traditions that cultivate respect and collaboration. The handmade masks mark entry into this community, anonymous yet revealing individuality through subtle style. What unites them is more than skill: it's a shared resourcefulness born from scrap, a camaraderie that flourishes in hard work, and an intergenerational exchange that weaves their collective identity.

03: Dreamers Series (Global)

KATERÍNA PAPANIKOLOPOULOS: On the domain of the public and rest—how are architecture and interior spaces used as a supportive background? What was the momentum that began your research on the “Dreamers” Series?

AYLA HIBRI: In my "Dreamers" series, I investigate the act of rest and repose, focusing on the relationship between the subject and spaces. Whether it’s the tranquil corners of a bustling city or the solitude of a kiosk—people claim rest in places that aren't assigned for it. This tension between design and improvisation reveals a paradox: architecture often resists the sleeper, yet exhaustion brings about a temporary truce, turning public spaces into contested zones of temporary belonging. The series highlights how design can either cradle or disregard the sleeper. In their vulnerable stillness, they take on an unintended solemnity, becoming living memento mori. Documented globally, the series refrains from comparing locations; instead, it reveals fatigue as a universal language, expressed through the unique rhythms of each location.

“In their vulnerable stillness, they take on an unintended solemnity, becoming living memento mori. Documented globally, the series refrains from comparing locations; instead, it reveals fatigue as a universal language, expressed through the unique rhythms of each location.”

KATERÍNA PAPANIKOLOPOULOS: Your relationship with photography moves between intimacy and distance; how do these dynamics shape your approach to image-making, and how has the process of returning to, reordering, and classifying your archive influenced the way you emphasize certain narratives over time? In reflecting on the phases of your encounters, how has your artistic perspective evolved from your initial gaze?

AYLA HIBRI: I use photography as both microscope and telescope—a tool for intimate observation and discovering hidden connections. My work is a tapestry of experiences, explorations, and observations. I navigate between the universal and the particular, seeking out patterns, peculiar phenomena, and unseen connections. As I gather this information, my understanding of the human experience and the psychogeography of various places deepens. Gradually, a structure emerges, transforming my archive into a visual epistemology, allowing me to classify images into archetypes, events, and motifs through which stories can be reimagined and recycled.

“Gradually, a structure emerges, transforming my archive into a visual epistemology, allowing me to classify images into archetypes, events, and motifs through which stories can be reimagined and recycled.”

AYLA HIBRI (b. 1987) is a visual artist from Beirut, Lebanon, currently based between Amman and Beirut. For the last decade, Hibri has been in constant travel, shifting environments to maintain a continuum of displacement and discovery. She has collected an expansive archive of visual data on the psychogeography of places and the ubiquitous aspects of the human condition. In parallel, she paints and draws creatures and worlds far removed from this one, driven by the matter of dreams and active imagination.

www.aylahibri.com