Kulturnest, 2023–2026: Four Years of Art, Encounters, and Unexpected Journeys
From a neglected family house and garden to a semi-nomadic, hybrid cultural space and a community of over 280 creatives.
Looking back at photographs taken between 2023 and 2026, it is sometimes difficult to believe how much has happened. The house filled with artworks, the garden crowded with visitors, the exhibitions, the workshops, the conversations, the people who became regulars, the unexpected friendships and collaborations... None of this existed when we first started restoring our family home in Sin-el-Fil.
Back then, there was an old house, an overgrown garden, years of accumulated neglect, and an idea that seemed rather ambitious given the circumstances.
We called it Kulturnest.
2023: From a Family Home to a Cultural Space
Our journey began with the restoration of an early 20th-century family house and its garden. Parts of the property had become a dumping ground. There was an enormous amount to clear, repair, restore, repaint, reorganize, and reinvent.
For approximately eight months, we worked on bringing the place back to life. Every room and every corner of the garden required attention. The transformation was gradual, sometimes exhausting, often unpredictable, and occasionally amusing in ways that only people who have undertaken a renovation in Lebanon would fully appreciate.
But our ambition went beyond restoring a building. We wanted to create a cultural space that felt different from a conventional gallery: somewhere artists, designers, writers, musicians, researchers, and other creatives could exhibit, experiment, exchange ideas, meet audiences, and develop collaborations. A space where artistic expression could coexist with everyday life, where a visit might begin with an exhibition and continue into a long conversation over coffee.
We also wanted to challenge certain divisions: between established and emerging artists, between art and craft, between academic and non-academic practices, between physical and digital experiences, and between creative expression and community engagement.
And we wanted the space to be accessible, welcoming, and open to experimentation.
On October 28, 2023, Kulturnest officially opened its doors with Unyielding, our inaugural collective art exhibition.
The timing was anything but reassuring. Lebanon was already struggling with a prolonged economic and institutional crisis, and war had once again brought fear and uncertainty into daily life. Many people advised us to postpone our launch until circumstances improved.
We understood their concerns. We simply did not know when those better circumstances would arrive.
So we opened.
2024: Making the Space Our Own
The months that followed were filled with discoveries, adjustments, new encounters, and the gradual realization that Kulturnest was developing a life of its own.
Our exhibition programme expanded with Art Her Way, dedicated to women's artistic expression, and Urban Canvas, which brought together diverse artistic perspectives on urban life, identity, and cultural experience.
We organized our first EcoArt Market, welcoming creative enterprises and artists working with recycling, upcycling, sustainable design, and environmentally conscious practices. We hosted workshops, seminars, discussions, cultural gatherings, and collaborations, including a calligraphy workshop with BeMA and academic conversations around art, architecture, and war memory.
Our garden became a place for creative activities and informal encounters. Our rooms welcomed exhibitions, discussions, and unexpected exchanges. Our concept store offered visitors opportunities to discover and support artists and makers.
Not everything followed a carefully designed programme. Some of the most interesting moments happened between scheduled activities, when people met, discovered shared interests, exchanged contacts, and began imagining projects together.
At the same time, 2024 was marked by escalating war and profound uncertainty. Organizing cultural events required constant adaptation. Plans could change overnight. People were exhausted, resources were limited, and the practical realities of maintaining an independent cultural space grew increasingly demanding.
We learned to work with uncertainty without pretending it was normal or acceptable.
2025: Expanding the Possibilities
By 2025, Kulturnest had become much more than the physical space we had initially restored.
Our creative community was growing, as were the forms of artistic practice and cultural exchange taking place within it.
Exhibitions such as Embodied Realities, Fragments of Life, and Aftermaths brought together artists exploring the body, memory, identity, personal histories, collective experiences, and the consequences of conflict and social change.
Through our hybrid exhibitions, we continued connecting physical artworks and installations with virtual spaces, allowing artists and audiences beyond Lebanon to participate.
Our EcoArt Markets and Art Under $100 initiatives created additional opportunities for artists and makers to present and sell their work, while encouraging visitors to discover and collect original creative pieces at accessible prices.
The programme also included creative workshops, percussion sessions, music gatherings, independent artistic projects, upcycled art, cultural discussions, and informal encounters.
These activities reflected something increasingly central to Kulturnest's identity: we were never interested in separating art from the many other ways people experience, produce, and share culture.
We wanted a place where a painter could meet a musician, where a designer could exchange ideas with a writer, where an established artist might collaborate with someone exhibiting for the first time, and where visitors could engage with artworks outside the formality sometimes associated with cultural institutions.
Our physical and digital activities continued to develop together, through our online gallery, eShop, virtual exhibitions, artist features, pop-ups, and collaborations.
This was also when our semi-nomadic, hybrid identity became more visible. Kulturnest remained rooted in our family house, but its activities, connections, and community increasingly extended beyond its physical boundaries.
2026: Continuing Through Uncertainty
The year 2026 brought another difficult chapter for Lebanon and its cultural sector.
War, displacement, economic pressures, and persistent instability continued to affect artists, audiences, cultural organizations, and independent initiatives.
These conditions were not abstract. They affected our daily operations, our programming, our budgets, our ability to plan, and the lives of the people who form our community.
Some activities had to be postponed or adjusted. Others continued under conditions that were far from ideal.
Our Havens hybrid collective exhibition, for example, was initially planned for April but had to be postponed because of the war. It eventually opened in June, bringing together artists from Lebanon and abroad around questions of shelter, vulnerability, memory, and the different ways people seek stability in an unstable world.
Our Garden Artist Residency Programme offered artists opportunities to develop their practices in a setting that encouraged experimentation and exchange. The Seasonal Rooms initiative transformed parts of the house into evolving creative showcases, bringing artworks, handmade objects, design pieces, and different forms of artistic production into conversation.
In October, Thresholds opened, inviting artists to explore transitions, boundaries, uncertainties, and the spaces between endings and beginnings.
Alongside these initiatives, we continued supporting creatives through our concept store, online gallery, artist features, workshops, markets, collaborations, and cultural programming.
None of this means that we have somehow overcome the difficulties surrounding us. We have not. Maintaining an independent cultural initiative in Lebanon remains a complicated and financially demanding undertaking, especially in a context where institutional support is limited, and the future often feels impossible to predict.
There are practical difficulties that rarely appear in photographs: maintenance, electricity, administrative work, logistics, financial pressures, postponed plans, and the endless small decisions involved in keeping a cultural space functioning.
There are also moments of exhaustion and frustration.
We believe it is important to acknowledge these realities rather than romanticize them. War is not an inspiring backdrop for creativity. It damages lives, livelihoods, communities, and cultural infrastructures. Artists should not have to endure extraordinary hardship simply to continue practising their work.
Nevertheless, cultural life continues to matter, particularly under such circumstances.
More Than 280 Creatives, and Many Stories Still Unfolding
Across these four calendar years, Kulturnest has grown into a community of more than 280 creatives, including painters, sculptors, photographers, illustrators, designers, writers, performers, artisans, and multidisciplinary practitioners.
We have organized dozens of exhibitions, art markets, workshops, cultural gatherings, and collaborative initiatives. We have welcomed artists at different stages of their careers, created opportunities for artistic visibility and exchange, developed physical and virtual experiences, and connected people working across disciplines and geographical boundaries.
But numbers tell only part of the story.
What matters equally are the individual journeys that have intersected with ours.
The artists who trusted us with their work. Those who exhibited for the first time. Those who returned with new projects. The visitors who discovered an artist they had never heard of. The conversations that continued long after an event ended. The relationships that developed between people who might otherwise never have met.
There have been moments of celebration, experimentation, disagreement, laughter, disappointment, and learning. There have been successful initiatives and others that taught us to reconsider our approach.
All of this has contributed to shaping Kulturnest.
We have also learned that building a creative community is very different from simply assembling a list of participating artists. A community requires attention, continuity, mutual respect, opportunities for exchange, and room for different personalities, experiences, and perspectives.
It is not always easy. Nor should we expect everyone to think alike or approach creativity in the same way.
For us, this diversity remains one of Kulturnest's most valuable qualities.
A House, a Garden, and Much More
When we revisit photographs of the property in early 2023, with its abandoned corners, accumulated waste, damaged spaces, and garden waiting to be reclaimed, the contrast with what followed is striking.
Yet the physical transformation is only one dimension of the story.
The house and garden provided the starting point, but Kulturnest gradually became something less easily defined by a location: a cultural project, a growing network, a platform for creative expression, and an ongoing experiment in how artistic and cultural initiatives can operate in Lebanon and beyond.
Our semi-nomadic, hybrid approach allows us to remain connected to our physical home while exploring other spaces, digital formats, collaborations, and ways of engaging with artists and audiences.
We do not have a fixed formula for what Kulturnest should become. We want it to remain flexible enough to evolve with the people who contribute to it and the changing circumstances in which we work.
What has remained consistent since the beginning is our commitment to artistic freedom, cultural diversity, accessibility, inclusivity, collaboration, art democratization, and the importance of creating opportunities for people to express themselves and connect.
To Everyone Who Has Been Part of This Journey
As sisters and co-founders, we, Drs. Pamela and Michèle Chrabieh, look back at these years with gratitude, pride, and a very clear awareness of how much work remains ahead.
We are grateful to every artist, designer, maker, writer, musician, researcher, collaborator, partner, visitor, neighbour, and friend who has contributed to Kulturnest in one way or another.
To those who believed in the project before it existed, those who helped us transform the space, those who participated in our first exhibitions, and those who joined us along the way: thank you.
Thank you also to everyone who continues to support independent creative work in Lebanon, whether by attending an exhibition, participating in a workshop, purchasing an artwork, sharing an artist's work, proposing a collaboration, or simply showing up.
These gestures matter. They contribute to the continuity of cultural initiatives that operate with limited resources and considerable uncertainty.
Four calendar years, from 2023 to 2026. A restored family house. A garden reclaimed. Hundreds of creatives. Dozens of initiatives. Countless encounters. And an evolving idea of what a cultural space can be.
We do not know exactly what the coming years will bring. Given everything Lebanon has experienced, making confident predictions would feel rather presumptuous.
But we know what we want to continue doing: developing opportunities for artists, experimenting with cultural formats, encouraging meaningful exchanges, and keeping Kulturnest open to new people, ideas, and possibilities.
And perhaps, somewhere between another exhibition installation, a conversation in the garden, and the next unexpected project, we will find ourselves looking back at these photographs again, surprised by how much the story has changed.