Fifteen Lanterns, One Child's Sets, and Autumn on the Table

Fifteen hand-chiselled lanterns lit up a village courtyard outside Cairo this month, marking architect Salem Charabi's first exhibition in Egypt. The show, titled Behind the Moon Mountain, ran for three days in the courtyard of his home and studio in Al-Haraneya, against the backdrop of Giza.

Charabi, who is Danish and Egyptian, worked between Cairo and Copenhagen before moving to Egypt full-time in late 2025. Over the past year he has made the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Centre — founded in the early 1950s as a weaving school for children — a place of self-discovery.

"The exhibition is the result of trying to uncover the landscapes that surround me," Charabi said. "One of the luxuries of being from multiple places is the agility it gives you from a young age—the ability to rapidly adapt to your surroundings."

The materials are as local as they come. The 15 lanterns are made from:

• Hand-chiselled diorite from Aswan
• Palm reeds from date palms in Saqqara
• Handmade paper from the stems of banana palms in the Nile Delta

The show's title references the fable that the Nile springs from the Moon Mountains, an undefined range south of Egypt. Charabi notes that light in Egypt is invoked continually as a blessing; when admiring something made by hand, one says, "May God illuminate your hands." The lanterns also reference scenes of Cairo — a city of a million satellites, pigeon towers, and other improvised vertical structures.

"I wanted to create an array of objects, derived from a type that changes and evolves with each iteration—illuminating the night, all exploring different proportions and scales," Charabi said.

Guests at the three-day installation were invited to watch the sun set and the lanterns come to life. A neat piece of theatre. It worked.

What happens when a five-year-old builds the sets?

Photographer Chris Mottalini, a frequent AD contributor, found his own route to childlike vision. He hired his son. In 2022, when Nino was five, Mottalini asked him to build sets out of paper, cardboard, and found objects for a new series of still-life images.

"I was just curious to see what he'd come up with," Mottalini recalls.

Nino accepted with gusto. He unearthed oddities in the basement of the family's Hudson Valley home and foraged foliage and flowers in the surrounding forest. The project then continued in Bangkok, home of Nino's maternal grandparents, where the young artist discovered a wealth of antiques and toothsome Thai fruits.

The collaboration has now spanned four years and two continents. The results are on view through November 15 at Available Items in Tivoli, New York, in an exhibition titled "Nino + Dad (Home Studies)." Picasso claimed it took a lifetime to paint like a child. Mottalini simply delegated.

How does Tabitha Simmons set an autumn table?

Designer Tabitha Simmons's new tableware line for Cabana draws on classic English country house motifs, her own family memories, and the colors of a New England fall. The results read as instant heirlooms.

The collection's details:

• Oak leaves and acorns ring hand-painted plates
• Embroidered placemats and napkins carry scalloped edges and foliate motifs
• A tablecloth presents dense botanicals in saturated browns and crimson

It is tableware for leaf-peeping season and holiday toasts alike. Whether anyone will risk cranberry sauce on a hand-painted acorn is another matter.