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Céline Semaan
EIP: Hi Céline. Do you think you could quickly introduce yourself?
CÉLINE: Yes, I’m Céline Semaan. I’m the founder of Slow Factory. I’m an artist, designer, creative, and writer—someone who is at the intersection of many things, primarily climate and human rights, but by way of arts, communications, objects, and stories.
EIP: Could you tell us about your upbringing and your artistic history?
CÉLINE: Yes. I was born and raised in Lebanon during the war—from 1975 to 1995—a very devastating war, and an unspoken-about war in the West. We had to flee as refugees because our ethnicity and religion were under threat.
Sadly, it became very much a religious war.
We left Lebanon as refugees for Montréal to seek asylum. This experience was very formative for me. I returned to Lebanon when I was 13 years-old. So I left at age four and came back in 1995 during a ceasefire. But, as you know, ceasefires with Israel don’t mean much. Israel continued to bomb and occupy the south of Lebanon. It’s very similar to what you see now.
So my upbringing made me aware of politics at a very young age. I understood early on that either we control our narrative or it will be shaped in favor of oppression against us. From a young age, I was involved in storytelling and various art forms— visual, performative—making a case for my culture, my people, and myself.
EIP: Did you always know you were an artist, or did that come later?
CÉLINE: At a very young age, I knew I was an artist. I was surrounded by artists in my family—my grandfather, my aunties on both my mom’s and dad’s sides—all talented illustrators and painters. My grandfather was a sculptor. I grew up immersed in creative expression. I studied under my grandfather and auntie, later under a Lebanese artist, and then a French artist who lived in Beirut for several years. I was born with a gift for illustrating and drawing, just like my aunties. For a long time, I thought I’d pursue painting and illustration.
But in 2002, I shifted into conceptual art and cyber arts. Even so, I’ve always struggled with fully practicing art as a career. Growing up in survival mode, art felt like a luxury— something “not for us.” Art is life for me, but I felt I had to build some structure of financial and physical safety to support my community, myself, and my peers.
EIP: Was there a turning point when you decided you could truly invest in art?
CÉLINE: Yes, 2006, when Israel bombed Lebanon’s airport and invaded. Anthony Bourdain happened to be there at the time. I was supposed to fly to Lebanon that day, but the bombing grounded flights. That summer was pivotal. like a slap in the face, making me think, “I can’t do art full-time; I need to create an infrastructure for survival.”
Two years later, in 2008, Slow Factory was born. Through it, I could be “an artist in disguise”, creating pathways but staying behind the scenes. Art is a vulnerable practice; you need support to do it, and when your home country is in chaos, art feels like a luxury. For almost 15 years, I hid behind Slow Factory. Only after my book came out in 2024 did I feel ready to say, “No — I can do both.”
EIP: Tell us more about Slow Factory — its creation, mission, and how Slow Forest fits as the next step.
CÉLINE: Slow Factory began with a manifesto: that we can create at the intersection of ecosystems and human relationships. That big, lofty goal can only exist through artistic exploration and experimentation first.
At the start, Slow Factory created art objects, some acquired into museum permanent collections. For example, I worked with squares of silk—seemingly neutral, but sourced ethically from places that treated silkworms well. The prints were NASA images showing Earth without political borders. I juxtaposed images over time—drought, deforestation, phytoplankton blooms—to explore climate change. These silks became scarves, which carried cultural meaning, whether worn as a hijab or simply for warmth and protection. Fashion creates culture; culture creates meaning; meaning can spark rebellion or resistance.
From 2008 to 2016, this was Slow Factory’s focus. In 2016, Trump’s Muslim Ban pushed me to create two pieces: a NASA image of the Middle East, questioning both the “ban” and the term “Middle East,” and another showing refugee migration data, a dark magenta stream flowing from the region toward Europe and America. These were printed on silk, worn, stretched on canvas, and exhibited, functioning as both garments and data visualization.
My work has always been about data, nature, and storytelling. Stories as data points.
EIP: How does Slow Forest fit into this next phase?
CÉLINE: Slow Factory has always operated in both conceptual and practical realms. Before Slow Forest, we had a small Brooklyn space, but after COVID, we moved here. For five years, I kept trying to recreate city-based projects, not realizing the forest itself was holding us. I’d been doing reforestation, working with native bees, removing invasive plants, building a living seed bank; all considered “practical” work, separate from art. But when approached about artist-run gardens, I realized I’d been bridging these worlds all along. Slow Forest is that embodiment: a living archive of seeds, events, and gatherings.
It’s where the digital meets the physical, not as an object, but as a living experience.
EIP: Could you share more about the forest’s history?
CÉLINE: This land was part of the Underground Railroad. It’s where freed Black Americans first owned land. Before that, it was Lenapehoking; the Lenape people were expelled, much like what’s happening in Palestine now.
This place still holds that colonized history, but also a reclamation: freed Black communities remaining here for generations. The first integrated cemetery between Black and white people is here. Harlem is nearby, as is the former home of Toni Morrison, where she wrote much of her work and welcomed Dr. Angela Davis.
Rewilding is also strong here: native planting, Black-owned farms, bee farms. It’s a place rich in both painful and liberatory history.
EIP: How do you see Slow Forest within the larger art-world turn toward nature?
CÉLINE: Gallery spaces are closing, but nature-based projects are thriving, especially upstate. The white-cube gallery feels increasingly irrelevant; art doesn’t live on white walls alone.
Slow Forest expands what a “gallery” is. and questions who has access to art and nature. Both are often privileges. Here, they are opened up, bringing together art audiences, environmentalists, cultural workers, communities that need to connect.Walking in nature is freeing. Adding art to that creates an even more expansive feeling.
EIP: What do you imagine the future to look like, for the world and for art?
CÉLINE: We’re in a time of deconstruction—dismantling colonial ways of separating art from politics, environment, and culture. The future will redefine what’s “precious”: clean air, water, and nature will replace material status symbols. Current wars— in Congo, Sudan, Gaza—are all resource wars. Art must reflect and question these realities, guiding society toward new ways of building.
EIP: In your book, you write about education as a colonial tool. In what ways is Slow Forest a school, and what can people learn here?
CÉLINE: For five years, I didn’t realize I was already in the school I’d been searching for. I imagined it as a building in New York—an expensive, institutional space—but that’s a colonized idea of education.
What if school is everywhere? What if it’s nomadic, outside institutions? The forest is that school, a cradle for ideas, allowing us to think beyond walls, to be legitimate and sovereign in nature, as nature.
When people come here, they feel it — and once they feel it, it becomes real.
EIP: That’s beautiful. Céline, that was my last question. Thank you so much.
CÉLINE: Thank you. I hope I answered all your questions. This was such a fun interview.
{
"article":
{
"title" : "Céline Semaan",
"author" : "Céline Semaan, Gabrielle Richardson",
"category" : "interviews",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/heirlooms-celine-semaan",
"date" : "2025-09-08 10:06:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/celine_88A8027.jpg",
"excerpt" : "EIP: Hi Céline. Do you think you could quickly introduce yourself?",
"content" : "EIP: Hi Céline. Do you think you could quickly introduce yourself?CÉLINE: Yes, I’m Céline Semaan. I’m the founder of Slow Factory. I’m an artist, designer, creative, and writer—someone who is at the intersection of many things, primarily climate and human rights, but by way of arts, communications, objects, and stories.EIP: Could you tell us about your upbringing and your artistic history?CÉLINE: Yes. I was born and raised in Lebanon during the war—from 1975 to 1995—a very devastating war, and an unspoken-about war in the West. We had to flee as refugees because our ethnicity and religion were under threat.Sadly, it became very much a religious war.We left Lebanon as refugees for Montréal to seek asylum. This experience was very formative for me. I returned to Lebanon when I was 13 years-old. So I left at age four and came back in 1995 during a ceasefire. But, as you know, ceasefires with Israel don’t mean much. Israel continued to bomb and occupy the south of Lebanon. It’s very similar to what you see now.So my upbringing made me aware of politics at a very young age. I understood early on that either we control our narrative or it will be shaped in favor of oppression against us. From a young age, I was involved in storytelling and various art forms— visual, performative—making a case for my culture, my people, and myself.EIP: Did you always know you were an artist, or did that come later?CÉLINE: At a very young age, I knew I was an artist. I was surrounded by artists in my family—my grandfather, my aunties on both my mom’s and dad’s sides—all talented illustrators and painters. My grandfather was a sculptor. I grew up immersed in creative expression. I studied under my grandfather and auntie, later under a Lebanese artist, and then a French artist who lived in Beirut for several years. I was born with a gift for illustrating and drawing, just like my aunties. For a long time, I thought I’d pursue painting and illustration.But in 2002, I shifted into conceptual art and cyber arts. Even so, I’ve always struggled with fully practicing art as a career. Growing up in survival mode, art felt like a luxury— something “not for us.” Art is life for me, but I felt I had to build some structure of financial and physical safety to support my community, myself, and my peers.EIP: Was there a turning point when you decided you could truly invest in art?CÉLINE: Yes, 2006, when Israel bombed Lebanon’s airport and invaded. Anthony Bourdain happened to be there at the time. I was supposed to fly to Lebanon that day, but the bombing grounded flights. That summer was pivotal. like a slap in the face, making me think, “I can’t do art full-time; I need to create an infrastructure for survival.”Two years later, in 2008, Slow Factory was born. Through it, I could be “an artist in disguise”, creating pathways but staying behind the scenes. Art is a vulnerable practice; you need support to do it, and when your home country is in chaos, art feels like a luxury. For almost 15 years, I hid behind Slow Factory. Only after my book came out in 2024 did I feel ready to say, “No — I can do both.”EIP: Tell us more about Slow Factory — its creation, mission, and how Slow Forest fits as the next step.CÉLINE: Slow Factory began with a manifesto: that we can create at the intersection of ecosystems and human relationships. That big, lofty goal can only exist through artistic exploration and experimentation first.At the start, Slow Factory created art objects, some acquired into museum permanent collections. For example, I worked with squares of silk—seemingly neutral, but sourced ethically from places that treated silkworms well. The prints were NASA images showing Earth without political borders. I juxtaposed images over time—drought, deforestation, phytoplankton blooms—to explore climate change. These silks became scarves, which carried cultural meaning, whether worn as a hijab or simply for warmth and protection. Fashion creates culture; culture creates meaning; meaning can spark rebellion or resistance.From 2008 to 2016, this was Slow Factory’s focus. In 2016, Trump’s Muslim Ban pushed me to create two pieces: a NASA image of the Middle East, questioning both the “ban” and the term “Middle East,” and another showing refugee migration data, a dark magenta stream flowing from the region toward Europe and America. These were printed on silk, worn, stretched on canvas, and exhibited, functioning as both garments and data visualization.My work has always been about data, nature, and storytelling. Stories as data points.EIP: How does Slow Forest fit into this next phase?CÉLINE: Slow Factory has always operated in both conceptual and practical realms. Before Slow Forest, we had a small Brooklyn space, but after COVID, we moved here. For five years, I kept trying to recreate city-based projects, not realizing the forest itself was holding us. I’d been doing reforestation, working with native bees, removing invasive plants, building a living seed bank; all considered “practical” work, separate from art. But when approached about artist-run gardens, I realized I’d been bridging these worlds all along. Slow Forest is that embodiment: a living archive of seeds, events, and gatherings.It’s where the digital meets the physical, not as an object, but as a living experience.EIP: Could you share more about the forest’s history?CÉLINE: This land was part of the Underground Railroad. It’s where freed Black Americans first owned land. Before that, it was Lenapehoking; the Lenape people were expelled, much like what’s happening in Palestine now.This place still holds that colonized history, but also a reclamation: freed Black communities remaining here for generations. The first integrated cemetery between Black and white people is here. Harlem is nearby, as is the former home of Toni Morrison, where she wrote much of her work and welcomed Dr. Angela Davis.Rewilding is also strong here: native planting, Black-owned farms, bee farms. It’s a place rich in both painful and liberatory history.EIP: How do you see Slow Forest within the larger art-world turn toward nature?CÉLINE: Gallery spaces are closing, but nature-based projects are thriving, especially upstate. The white-cube gallery feels increasingly irrelevant; art doesn’t live on white walls alone.Slow Forest expands what a “gallery” is. and questions who has access to art and nature. Both are often privileges. Here, they are opened up, bringing together art audiences, environmentalists, cultural workers, communities that need to connect.Walking in nature is freeing. Adding art to that creates an even more expansive feeling.EIP: What do you imagine the future to look like, for the world and for art?CÉLINE: We’re in a time of deconstruction—dismantling colonial ways of separating art from politics, environment, and culture. The future will redefine what’s “precious”: clean air, water, and nature will replace material status symbols. Current wars— in Congo, Sudan, Gaza—are all resource wars. Art must reflect and question these realities, guiding society toward new ways of building.EIP: In your book, you write about education as a colonial tool. In what ways is Slow Forest a school, and what can people learn here?CÉLINE: For five years, I didn’t realize I was already in the school I’d been searching for. I imagined it as a building in New York—an expensive, institutional space—but that’s a colonized idea of education. What if school is everywhere? What if it’s nomadic, outside institutions? The forest is that school, a cradle for ideas, allowing us to think beyond walls, to be legitimate and sovereign in nature, as nature.When people come here, they feel it — and once they feel it, it becomes real.EIP: That’s beautiful. Céline, that was my last question. Thank you so much.CÉLINE: Thank you. I hope I answered all your questions. This was such a fun interview."
}
,
"relatedposts": [
{
"title" : "Black Liberation Views on Palestine",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/black-liberation-on-palestine",
"date" : "2025-10-17 09:01:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/mandela-keffiyeh.jpg",
"excerpt" : "",
"content" : "In understanding global politics, it is important to look at Black liberation struggles as one important source of moral perspective. So, when looking at Palestine, we look to Black leaders to see how they perceived the Palestinian struggle in relation to theirs, from the 1960’s to today.Why must we understand where the injustice lies? Because, as Desmond Tutu famously said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”{% for person in site.data.quotes-black-liberation-palestine %}{{ person.name }}{% for quote in person.quotes %}“{{ quote.text }}”{% if quote.source %}— {{ quote.source }}{% endif %}{% endfor %}{% endfor %}"
}
,
{
"title" : "First Anniversary Celebration of EIP",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "events",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/1st-anniversary-of-eip",
"date" : "2025-10-14 18:01:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/WSA_EIP_Launch_Cover.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Celebrating One Year of Independent Publishing",
"content" : "Celebrating One Year of Independent PublishingJoin Everything is Political on November 21st for the launch of our End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine.This members-only evening will feature a benefit dinner, cocktails, and live performances in celebration of a year of independent media, critical voices, and collective resistance.The EventNovember 21, 2025, 7-11pmLower Manhattan, New YorkLaunching our End-of-Year Special Edition MagazineSpecial appearances and performancesFood & Drink includedTickets are extremely limited, reserve yours now!Become an annual print member: get x back issues of EIP, receive the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine, and come to the Anniversary Celebration.$470Already a member? Sign in to get your special offer. Buy Ticket $150 Just $50 ! and get the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine Buy ticket $150 and get the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine "
}
,
{
"title" : "Miu Miu Transforms the Apron From Trad Wife to Boss Lady: The sexiest thing in Paris was a work garment",
"author" : "Khaoula Ghanem",
"category" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/miu-miu-transforms-the-apron-from-trad-wife-to-boss-lady",
"date" : "2025-10-14 13:05:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Cover_EIP_MiuMiu_Apron.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Miuccia Prada has a habit of taking the least “fashion” thing in the room and making it the argument. For Spring 2026 at Miu Miu, the argument is the apron; staged not as a coy retro flourish but as a total system. The show’s mise-en-scène read like a canteen or factory floor with melamine-like tables, rationalist severity, a whiff of cleaning fluid. In other words, a runway designed to force a conversation about labor before any sparkle could distract us.",
"content" : "Miuccia Prada has a habit of taking the least “fashion” thing in the room and making it the argument. For Spring 2026 at Miu Miu, the argument is the apron; staged not as a coy retro flourish but as a total system. The show’s mise-en-scène read like a canteen or factory floor with melamine-like tables, rationalist severity, a whiff of cleaning fluid. In other words, a runway designed to force a conversation about labor before any sparkle could distract us.From the opening look—German actress Sandra Hüller in a utilitarian deep-blue apron layered over a barn jacket and neat blue shirting—the thesis was loud: the “cover” becomes the thing itself. As silhouettes marched on, aprons multiplied and mutated—industrial drill cotton with front pockets, raw canvas, taffeta and cloqué silk, lace-edged versions that flirted with lingerie, even black leather and crystal-studded incarnations that reframed function as ornament. What the apron traditionally shields (clothes, bodies, “the good dress”) was inverted; the protection became the prized surface. Prada herself spelled it out: “The apron is my favorite piece of clothing… it symbolizes women, from factories through to serving to the home.”Miu Miu Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear. SuppliedThis inversion matters historically. The apron’s earliest fashion-adjacent life was industrial. It served as a barrier against grease, heat, stain. It was a token of paid and unpaid care. Miu Miu tapped that lineage directly (canvas, work belts, D-ring hardware), then sliced it against domestic codes (florals, ruffles, crochet), and finally pushed into nightlife with bejeweled and leather bibs. The garment’s migration across materials made its social migrations visible. It is a kitchen apron, yes, but also one for labs, hospitals, and factories; the set and styling insisted on that plurality.What makes the apron such a loaded emblem is not just what it covers, but what it reveals about who has always been working. Before industrialization formalized labor into factory shifts and wages, women were already performing invisible labour, the kind that doesn’t exist on payrolls but sits at the foundation of every functioning society. They were cooking, cleaning, raising children, nursing the ill. These tasks were foundational to every economy and yet absent from every ledger. Even when women entered the industrial workforce, from textile plants to wartime assembly lines, their domestic responsibilities did not disappear, they doubled. In that context, the apron here is a quiet manifesto for the strength that goes unrecorded, unthanked, and yet keeps civilization running.The algorithmic rise of the “tradwife,” the influencer economy that packages domesticity as soft power, is the contemporary cultural shadow here. Miu Miu’s apron refuses that rehearsal. In fact, it’s intentionally awkward—oversized, undone, worn over bikinis or with sturdy shoes—so the viewer can’t flatten it into Pinterest-ready nostalgia. Critics noted the collection as a reclamation, a rebuttal to the flattening forces of the feed: the apron as a uniform for endurance rather than submission. The show notes framed it simply as “a consideration of the work of women,” a reminder that the invisible economies of effort—paid, unpaid, emotional—still structure daily life.If that sounds unusually explicit for a luxury runway, consider the designer. Prada trained as a mime at Milan’s Piccolo Teatro, earned a PhD in political science, joined the Italian Communist Party, and was active in the women’s rights movement in 1970s Milan. Those facts are not trivia; they are the grammar of her clothes. Decades of “ugly chic” were, essentially, a slow campaign against easy consumption and default beauty. In 2026, the apron becomes the newest dialect. An emblem drawn from leftist feminist history, recoded into a product that still has to sell. That tension—belief versus business—is the Miuccia paradox, and it’s precisely why these aprons read as statements, not trends.The runway narrative traced a journey from function to fetish. Early looks were squarely utilitarian—thick cottons, pocketed bibs—before migrating toward fragility and sparkle. Lace aprons laid transparently over swimmers; crystal-studded aprons slipped across cocktail territory; leather apron-dresses stiffened posture into armor. The sequencing proposed the same silhouette can encode labor, intimacy, and spectacle depending on fabrication. If most brands smuggle “workwear” in as set dressing, Miu Miu forced it onto the body as the central garment and an unmissable reminder that the feminine is often asked to be both shield and display at once.It’s instructive to read this collection against the house’s last mega-viral object: the micro-mini of Spring 2022, a pleated, raw-hem wafer that colonized timelines and magazine covers. That skirt’s thesis was exposure—hip bones and hemlines as post-lockdown spectacle, Y2K nostalgia framed as liberation-lite. The apron, ironically, covers. Where the micro-mini trafficked in the optics of freedom (and the speed of virality), the apron asks about the conditions that make freedom possible: who launders, who cooks, who cares? To move from “look at me” to “who is working here?” is a pivot from optics to ethics, without abandoning desire. (The aprons are, after all, deeply covetable.) In a platform economy that still rewards the shortest hemline with the biggest click-through, this is a sophisticated counter-program.Yet the designer is not romanticizing toil. There’s wit in the ruffles and perversity in the crystals; neither negate labor, they metabolize it. The most striking image is the apron treated as couture-adjacent. Traditionally, an apron protects the precious thing beneath; here, the apron is the precious thing. You could call that hypocrisy—luxurizing the uniform of workers. Or, strategy, insisting that the symbols of care and effort deserve visibility and investment.Of course, none of this exists in a vacuum. The “tradwife” script thrives because it is aesthetically legible and commercially scalable. It packages gender ideology as moodboard. Miu Miu counters with garments whose legibility flickers. The collection’s best looks ask viewers to reconcile tenderness with toughness, convenience with care, which is exactly the mental choreography demanded of women in every context from office to home to online.If you wanted a season-defining “It” item, you’ll still find it. The apron is poised to proliferate across fast-fashion and luxury alike. But the deeper success is structural: Miu Miu re-centered labor as an aesthetic category. That’s rarer than a viral skirt. It’s a reminder that clothes don’t merely decorate life, they describe and negotiate it. In making the apron the subject rather than the prop, Prada turned a garment of service into a platform for agency. It’s precisely the kind of cultural recursion you’d expect from a designer shaped by feminist politics, who never stopped treating fashion as an instrument of thought as much as style.The last image to hold onto is deceptively simple: a woman in an apron, neither fetishized nor infantilized, striding, hands free. Not a costume for nostalgia, not a meme for the feed, but a working uniform reframed, respected, and suddenly, undeniably beautiful. That is Miu Miu’s provocation for Spring 2026: the work behind the work, made visible at last."
}
]
}