Ruinborn: 90s Relics I
2026
3D-printed PLA, steel wire, archival material
Variable dimensions
Ruinborn: 90s Relics I returns to a collection of ordinary objects from my childhood in Sharjah in the 1990s. They belonged to a home, a time, and an everyday life that no longer exist in the same form.
I rebuild these objects as fragments rather than replicas. Some come from photographs, others from memory, and some remain incomplete. Printed in the same grey, they lose their original colors and functions and become parts of something else.
The fragments are connected with wire and assembled into temporary figures. They can come apart and take another form.
The work is not about reconstructing what was lost exactly as it was, but about what can be made from what remains.
The Building
Juma Al Majid Building, Abu Shagara, Sharjah, UAE. The building where I grew up was demolished in 2023. I returned to its memory through the ordinary objects that once belonged to that home.
The Objects
I began with ordinary objects I remembered from the apartment, using family photographs, found references, and memory to reconstruct what was no longer there.
The Fragments
Using AI-assisted image making and 3D modeling, I transformed photographs and remembered objects into three-dimensional fragments. The forms were then developed, adjusted, and prepared for 3D printing.
The fragments were then 3D printed in grey PLA, becoming physical pieces ready to be connected and rearranged.
Testing and 3D printing the fragments, 2026
Assembly
There is no final form. The fragments are connected with steel wire and can be assembled and reassembled into different temporary bodies.
Assembly possibilities
Process / physical testing
The Storage Box
The storage box takes its form from the façade of the building in Sharjah. It holds the fragments when they are apart and becomes their base when they are assembled, connecting the objects back to the place they came from.
3D-printed storage box, 2026
Installation view
Ruinborn: 90s Relics I, Palestine Design Week, Ramallah, 2026
Fragment Catalogue
A catalogue tracing the household objects and fragments used to build Ruinborn.
Credits
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Concept, research, design & fabrication
Hiba G. Isleem
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Presented at
Palestine Design Week, 2026
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Supported by
Goethe-Institut
Mishkal Project