The history of the Arabic speaking peoples of Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) are complex—nested in various cultural, social, political, technological and economic contexts. Colonial powers played tribal groups against each other, stole resources—including cultural artifacts and tore apart entire ethnic groups. So as formerly colonized or currently occupied spaces, graphic design has been heavily political with a revolutionary agenda, which represents the artifacts at the Letterform Archive.
There are a multitude of scripts in the SWANA region—more than 28 languages that use the Arabic script (Persian, Urdu, Ottoman Turkish, etc), and scripts like Tamazight, Hebrew, and Ge’ez, that showcase the rich cultural diversity of the region. This tour will focus on the diversity of Arabic calligraphic styles, and show examples of font development that required transforming a once handwritten art into movable type.
Our docent for this in-person tour is Sabiha Basrai.
This tour was made possible by a generous grant from Hauser & Wirth.