Clay Unbound: A Sensory Inquiry into Matter and Transformation is Fabrica Design Platform’s living laboratory for WE Design Beirut -a site for rigorous, tactile, and sensorial exploration of clay. Designed as an immersive and interactive environment, the installation invites visitors to question, touch, and experience clay as a material of memory, transformation, and innovation. At its core, the project asks: What is clay -and what might it become?
By engaging all the senses, Clay Unbound reimagines how we understand ceramics, moving beyond the object toward a full-bodied encounter with the processes and philosophies of making.
The installation is guided by four key notions:
1. Breaking boundaries between craft, art, science, and design.
2. Releasing clay from purely functional or decorative roles and positioning it as a site of experimentation.
3. Expanding its definition beyond technique toward conceptual, tactile, and sensory experience.
4. Challenging the material, technical, and cultural limitations often associated with ceramics.
Over the course of five days, the exhibition unfolds through a dynamic scenography that engages both mind and body. Through hands-on stations, live demonstrations, tactile explorations, and in-situ experimentation, participants witness and participate in the full journey of clay -from raw earth to fired form. The space is structured around three complementary zones:
1. Interactive Clay Installations -A sequence of stations that invite the public to touch, mold, and explore clay in its many forms: experimenting with different clay bodies, recycling methods, hand-building, wheel-throwing, glaze formulation, and firing. This is a space of collective learning, where knowledge is transferred through direct, embodied engagement.
2. The Material Alchemy Lab -Two installations explore clay’s transformative nature, inviting visitors to witness how the material responds to fire, time, and human intervention. This space foregrounds both the scientific precision and the unpredictable alchemy of ceramics. The living archive focuses on glaze experimentation, exposing mixtures of minerals and chemical additives to fire, revealing unexpected surfaces, colors, and textures. Installation Two turns to local resources, testing native clays and aggregates to uncover how place-based materials transform under heat and pressure. Together, the works highlight the tension between control and chance, research and accident, offering a sensorial inquiry into clay’s endless possibilities.
3. Collaborative Workshops -In our commitment to education and experimentation, Fabrica Design Platform offers four free public workshops each day. These open sessions welcome participants of all levels to learn, play, and expand their skills. Schedules are available on our Instagram page and through our team.
Through this initiative, Fabrica Design Platform reaffirms its identity as an experimental school -merging traditional know-how with contemporary inquiry. The aim is to broaden the cultural and material discourse around clay, to expose its complexities, and to provoke new ways of thinking through making. This is more than an exhibition. It is an experience -where theory meets touch, where material meets meaning, and where audiences become makers.