Mapping Margins at Fikra Graphic Design Biennial 01

- written by Laura 

The inaugural Fikra Graphic Design Biennial 01 – and the first in the region – opened last week and is a hotbed of fresh ideas and cutting-edge perspectives from creatives from all across the globe.

For its debut year, the biennial takes the shape of a fictional Ministry of Graphic Design, with each ‘department’ addressing a different approach to graphic design practice and inhabiting different parts of the soon to be demolished Bank of Sharjah building. But where do all these jostling ideas and opinions have chance to mingle and grow? Thankfully the Department of Mapping Margins has got that covered.

The Department is a space where talks, events and interactions allow biennial visitors to reflect on the state of graphic design as well as highlighting its power to address cross-cultural questions, overlapping working methods, conditions and models.

The department and its enticing programme has been curated by Uzma Z. Rizvi, associate professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies at Pratt Institute in New York, who also is a visiting scholar at the Department of International Studies, American University of Sharjah.

‘In our world today, margins, boundaries, and borders are being tested in every sense of the word,’ says Uzma. ‘A line is no longer, and perhaps never has just been, a line. The Department of Mapping Margins takes seriously the histories of cartography, both of geographies and disciplines, and thus of biennials. By focusing on the margins, this department illustrates the many ways by which there is a fluidity, openness and criticality to the ways by which contemporary graphic designers are testing and realigning those lines.’

Every event is packed with thought-provoking possibility, from talks to dinners to workshops. Highlights include an exploration of the topic of de-centering English, ie how to use the global language without being bound by Western communication modes with Huda AbiFares of the Khatt Foundation and designers Santi Lawrachawee  and Asad Pervaiz; Corrine Gisel and Nina Paim of Swiss studio common-interest (and curators of the department of Non Binaries), discussing the future of graphics with moderator Dr. Danah Abdulla and Elizabeth Tunstall from Ontario College of Art and Design; plus a pop-up shop and musical performances, both curated by design studio Turbo.

New arts and culture collective MINAAZINE is launching it's first issue, focusing on creativity in the Middle East and North Africa, and its diaspora. A second MENA-focused graphic design magazine Bayn is also launching during the biennial, and will host a discussion about how the lack of critical writing about graphics in the region and the subsequent tendency for younger designers to look to the West for tradition is having a knock-on effect on wider culture. ‘Consequently, the term graphic design continues to feel foreign to a larger public in the region, as it seems to be inherited from other cultures,’ organisers say. Bayn looks set to change that.

Part of Fikra Design Biennial special is its communal attitude and instinct to share. Food is a big part of that ethos – fittingly the festival opened with a Bohra thaal dinner, which explored the cultural, culinary, and economic influence of the Bohra business community of the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean – understanding Sharjah’s cultural moment through food. On 10 November, department heads cooked lunch together, swapping notes on the vernacular flavours of where they live, and discussing how food histories and design histories intersect.

There’s workshops too, from Arabic lettering to experimental projects that visitors can collaborate on. Foundland Collective’s workshop, The New World, Sharjah Interlude, will explore the resilience of Syrian immigrants who have settled in the UAE, while attendees to Sharjah (in)Visible City will make a joint map to capture the intangible moments of the city (think smells, textures, sounds and hidden elements) – so important as the Heart of Sharjah historical project begins to reshape the city.

Uzma says, ‘Each event, conversation, meal, taste, smell, sound and movement linked to this Department provides an opportunity to reconsider the field, and understand how design is deeply relevant to the political, social, and cultural global contemporary narrative. Hosting a biennial gives the next generation of designers in the region options of what it might mean to be a designer in the now, without limiting what design is, does, and can be.’