Nour Sadat's main practices are graphic design, illustration, andupcycling furniture and objects. Graphic design is her primary source ofincome, but over time she found herself missing working with her hands. Shestarted picking up furniture from the street and refurbishing it, teachingherself through YouTube. For a long time, she did this from her bedroom, whichshe eventually realised was not very healthy. What she makes depends greatly onwhat she finds and what materials she has available. She describes the work asa love letter to her inner child, a way of bringing joy and colour intopeoples’ homes and daily life and counteracting the often grey Amsterdam skies.
Nour has been at Contact for around half a year. She values the sensethat the possibilities of the space feel endless. There is always someone toask for help or to learn something new from. She also appreciates having aphysical space where she can get her hands dirty without having to clean upstraight away, especially compared to when she worked from her bedroom. Nouralso values the particular focus she is surrounded by when working in theBeeBox area, working alongside others who are equally absorbed in the detailsof their own work. She also finds it inspiring to see what everyone around heris working on and to learn about different mediums from the people nearby.
At the moment she has not been in as much as usual, but she is working onkeychains, mirrors, incense holders, and altars. Cutting mirror has turned outto be harder than expected and she is currently prototyping and learning as shegoes. She also has a set of chairs she wants to work on for herself, alongsideongoing illustration and design work, including a website for an NGO.
Inspiration for Nour comes largely from nature, especially the fourelements. Like nature, she wants the objects she creates to be somethingcolourful but also calming. Connection is another huge inspiration for herwork. She often thinks about how objects can help people feel more connected tothemselves and to the things that matter to them, whether that is nature, acommunity, a song, in the same way that the making process connects her toherself. She also feels a connection to the people who buy her work, and thatthe energy she puts into the objects comes to live within peoples’ spaces.
The project that stands out most is a set of shelves she made, one foreach element of nature. Looking back at them now she can see many things thatshe might choose to do differently in the future. At the time, this was thefirst making project she took seriously after years away from it. She learnedto sand, prime, and paint as she went, and designed the shelves herself bysketching them in pencil first, then moving them onto a computer before theybecame physical objects. Styling them in her room for the photos was also partof the process. They sold the moment she put them online, which meant a greatdeal to her.
