On the move or on the run? Travelling or fleeing? These are the questions that pass through the mind when watching the tales of Bojka, aka Hoda Baroudi and Maria Hibri, who unveiled their new Migration Stories collection at Spazio Rossana Orlandi during Milan Design Week. Their creations are decidedly distressed, and look like they’ve been through a lot before we come across them in these lovely press shot’s equally lived in environment of peeling paint and chipped plaster.
Granted, people escaping war-zones don’t usually stop to pack up their sofa and armchair, but with its bundles of bedding Migration Stories creates the sense that the owners are taking their whole lives on the road with them, and there won’t be a Pickfords moving van outside to help them relocate to point B. Furniture, rugs, artwork, even wallpaper by Deborah Bowness has been designed with movement in mind, with tree and bird motifs suggesting growth and flight amid the tumbledown room setting. In Migration Stories, Bojka’s Beirut workshop craftspeople, hailing from a variety of Arab nations, have used their first-hand knowledge of life as an immigrant to authentic effect.
