Huda Kalash

Design Products (MA)

The design draws from Hebron's traditional crafts, where leather tanning has persisted for over 120 years despite globalisation and Israeli occupation. Inspired by traditional "Balgha - بلغة" footwear, the shoe uses vegetable-tanned leather, a byproduct of the local meat industry, and is moulded from the sole upward to simplify its structure and emphasis its protective role.

The footprint has long been associated with quantifying our impact on the planet. With the Balgha, she wanted the footprint to tell the untold story of the shoe, of the people who made it, and of their hands. This involves scaling down from the borders of the land, specifically the occupied land of Palestine, and crediting the hands that create the product. These hands hold a wealth of knowledge and wisdom about their craft and the nature of their environment. She wanted to go beyond labeling a product based on borders drawn by some people, which is already misleading the customer.

Inspired by the Pampootie, a prehistoric foot bag designed to protect and carry the foot along necessary paths, and the Balgha, which supported the walker on their journey, she conceived the idea of molding the leather from the bottom up. In this design, the sole forms over the last to become the canvas we step on.

Process

About

Huda Kalash is a Palestinian product designer, she pursued Industrial Design at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design In Jerusalem, graduating in 2019, and subsequently worked at the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, West Bank. Her commitment to preserving and documenting Palestinian crafts led her to write craft manuals for UNESCO and teach design thinking and textile technologies at Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem before coming to London to pursue a masters in Design Products at the RCA in London, UK. In 2020, she founded the brand نَـ, Nah, named after the prefix commonly used to denote collective action in the present in the Arabic language. The work of نَـ seeks to emphasis justice in collective making, asserting that no product is the result of individual work.

Her approach to design, grounded in research and collaboration, aims to bridge the gap between past and present by considering the interplay between maker, material, environment, and end user. By engaging with stakeholders and drawing on diverse disciplines, she seeks to create a holistic framework that honours tradition while embracing innovation and sustainability.

She strives to create a comprehensive understanding of the interconnected dynamics within the realm of making and design. Her overarching goal is to establish a holistic social and economic system that empowers makers and educates both herself and the end users of the products. This endeavour involves exploring various research avenues, including historical and contemporary methods of making, to inform a hybrid approach that considers the maker, the environment, the material, and the end user. By delving into storytelling, archival research, and collaboration with historians and craftspeople, she aims to develop a nuanced understanding of the intricate relationships between these elements. Ultimately, she seeks to pave the way for a more sustainable, inclusive, and culturally rich approach to design practice.

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