OUR STORY
Inspired by productive communities, we founded a workshop that combines both the design and manufacturing processes. Just as cultures used self-expression to reflect their experiences through art and architecture, we abstracted our human experiences into stories narrated on fabric. These abstractions are a reflection of the modern human, universal feelings and experiences.
Chagara is a block-printing workshop in Egypt that specializes in authentic fabrics founded by the two architects Amar El-Zaman Abdel-Halim and Noheir ELgendy. Our Creative aim is to introduce motifs that represent our modern world. To reach this, we considered the motif as our theatre, in which a square is a character that performs an act. This act is part of a story or the play that we write, but instead of following the traditional stories, we take matters in our hands and create new stories that abstract our everyday experience in life.
The design process is inspired by self-expression and story narration. It combines traditional crafts as block-printing with contemporary design approaches. This is also inspired by the primitive communities where work is linked to life and production is linked to a real need of expressing oneself.
We tell Stories about our live grief, struggle and happiness. Each character, Situation or scene gets abstracted into drawings and motifs. Each motif is considered a scene in the story.
The Story get narrated through the succession of motifs that using geometrical order to allow the narration either within one fabric or several fabrics.
CHAGARA & NATURE
Chagara aims to protect the environment as the production process only includes natural dyes with minimal amounts of chemicals. When it comes to fabrics, organic ones such as linen, cotton and silk are Chagara’s fabrics of choice. Our first collection is a narration of giving and self-sacrifice. As Chagara grows, we aim to create an environment of work related to nature That allows us to plant our dyes, Print our fabric and produce our design. We envision that our expansion will more into a land in an agricultural land around Cairo.
