Exhibition Dates 07/06—11/08/24
Opening with a ‘reading’ by sound artist Paolo Dellapiana (Torino) 06/06/24 19:00–21:00
Workshop with antoine lefebvre editions, Friday 07/06/24 (booking required)
Reading Artists’ Books: Asemic Writing, Thursday 18/07/24, 18:30
Finissage with guided tour by Regine Ehleiter and Anja Lutz, Sunday 11/08/24, 15:00

From the late 1960s onwards, the Argentine conceptual artist Mirtha Dermisache (1940­–2012) produced numerous publications, containing marks that resemble writing, in both its handwritten and typographic forms. Although the pages of these works imitate familiar graphic forms, most famously in the case of her newspaper Diario 1: Año 1 (1972, with several later reprints), the signs of which they consist do not convey semantic content. Her work is therefore often contextualised as “asemic writing” – a term coined by Gillo Dorfles in 1974, in response to works by one of Dermisache’s contemporaries, the German-Italian artist Irma Blank (1934–2023).

In 1967, Dermisache published her first book, the 500-page Libro n° 1. Other publications followed, always referencing well-known formats of communication – book, text, postcard, letter, bulletin, poem, comic and newspaper – the names of which usually formed part of a work’s title, together with its respective number and the year in which it was produced. Rather than presenting only individual pages of the books as samples of the forms with which Dermisache experimented, the exhibition aims to emphasise the mediality and materiality of her publications as works that developed according to a specific sequence and logic, citing familiar layout formats.

While her work has received critical attention in the Americas, France and Belgium in recent years – including, most notably, a large-scale retrospective exhibition at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA) in 2017 – it is still absent from art-historical and literary discourses in Germany. Largely produced under conditions of political repression, during the military dictatorship in Argentina, the illegibility of Mirtha Dermisache’s publications itself can be read as a resistant gesture, echoing the emptiness of state propaganda and marking her wish to keep ‘writing’, publishing and spreading her work, despite adverse circumstances.

The exhibition’s title “To Be Read” can be understood both as an invitation to attend to Mirtha Dermisache’s rich body of work, and as a reflection on the artist’s desire to have her work circulated widely. As the artist pointed out on several occasions, her interest was not in producing precious book works, to be collected, fetishised and displayed “like paintings.” Although her earliest artist’s books are mainly unicums, now held in private collections, she wanted them to exist in larger editions and be circulated as extensively. For her, publications were the “only appropriate space” for her work “to be read.” Meaning, she explained, formed “in the hands of the one who picks [a publication] up.” Legado Mirtha Dermisache, the artist’s estate based in Buenos Aires, is supporting the exhibition by donating objects that will later be made available to the wider public at Freie Universität Berlin’s libraries.

The layout of this exhibition, which is a collaboration between the Cluster of Excellence “Temporal Communities. Doing Literature in a Global Perspective” of the Freie Universität Berlin and A–Z, the space for experimental graphic design, run by Anja Lutz, develops these ideas. Following the artist’s wishes, it offers visitors the opportunity to browse her books (by means of facsimile copies), and presents a reprint of a publication and a post card from the 1970s to take away. The exhibition brochure is available at A—Z and as a download pdf. Apart from the main venue, A—Z, the exhibition expands to a satellite space, the bulletin-board-as-exhibition-space oxfordberlin in Wedding, and even beyond, by means of a postcard work by Dermisache, which in due course may travel to unforeseen places.

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Regine Ehleiter (EXC “Temporal Communities”, Freie Universität Berlin). Co-initiator and exhibition designer: Anja Lutz (A–Z, Berlin).

Exhibition 23/11/2023–24/02/2024
Opening 23/11/2023, 19:00–23:00 with Recipe inspired drinks, like Healing Lemonade and Existential Crisis Bitter.
Closing Event 24/02/2024, 14:00–19:00

The A—Z Collective is launching a crowd-sourced, modular publication: RECIPES FOR CONNECTING

Recipes for Connecting is a project by the A—Z Collective, featuring “recipe” submissions from an international group of creatives, community builders, kids-at-heart, collectives, educators, and other cohorts who believe in the power of a simple idea to bring people closer together.

These “recipes” illustrate many different methods of connecting – offering practical social tools, humorous prompts, gentle reminders, alternative structures of communication, and scrumptious meals. Together this crowd-sourced modular publication creates a patchwork of insights into “connecting” on individual, interpersonal, human, non-human, and collective levels.

In the exhibition, over 60 different “recipes” pages are on display and available for purchase. Each visitor is invited to assemble chosen pages as they please, self-bind on-site, and create a personalized compendium. Visitors are also invited to contribute their own “recipes.”

The publication and display will be joined by special reading library and a series of events:

Sunday, November 12, 14:00-16:00
RECIPES FOR CONNECTING with The School for Somatic Design Practices, hosted by Emma Hoette, Sara Kaaman, Susan Sentler, Silvia Sfligiotti, Emily Smith, Vivien Tauchmann, Micaela Terk

Sunday, November 26, 12:00-16:00 (by invitation only!)
RECIPES FOR CONNECTING through Design Pedagogy, hosted by Lisa Baumgarten
Note: this event is in German and by invitation only. More infos here

Janaury 18–21, 11:00–20:00 at Index Art Book Fair in Mexico City
RECIPES FOR CONNECTING will be celebrated with a special installation at Kurimanzutto Art Gallery as part of Index Art Book Fair

We look forward to connecting with you all

♥ A–Z Collective

The A—Z Collective took shape in early 2023 with the purpose of exploring what we as designers might learn from a more conscious way of working as a collaborative whole. We have since learned through various projects, how an experimental approach to graphic design can provide new ways of practicing, playing, connecting, communicating, and depending on one another.

A—Z Collective Members: Alina Frieske, Anja Lutz, Emily Smith, Eunjung Kwak, Francesco Pini, Gregory Cowling, Ioana Ferariu, Kelly Diepenbrock, Lisa Baumgarten, Manuela Dos Santos, Pia Steiner, Sofia Harley. With special support by Jens Bauermeister.

With Recipe contributions by: Alex Jordan, Alina Frieske, Andrea Tinnes, Andreas Koch, Anja Lutz, Anne Christin Plate, April Gertler, Catrin Sonnabend, Claudia de la Torre, Clemens Gensch, Cindy Moorman, Daniel Pearce, Elaine Lopez, Eloise Hammermeister Smith, Emily Smith, Eunjung Kwak, Francesco Pini, Gregory Cowling, George Titheridge, Hanna Müller, Hounyeh Kim, Ivana Jecmenica, Josepha Conrad, Joshua Duttweiler, Judy Smith, Karen Ruge, Katherine May, Kristina Wedel, Lana Belton, Lan Kroeger, Laura Meseguer, Lisa Baumgarten, Maarten Janssen, Manuela Eichner, Marin Griffith, Mio Kojima, Molly Haig, Natalia Lombardo, Niklaus Troxler, Patrick Lacey, Paul Steinmann, Pia Steiner, Rachael Dunstan, Radna Rumping, Ramon Tejada, Sarah Boris, Sevinç Lenglachner, Siri Lee Lindskrog / Formal Setting, Silvia Sfligiotti, Sofia Harley, Stephanie Marie Cedeño, Susan Ploetz, Tulah Stanford.

Recipes for Connecting is printed on different colours of SURBALIN glatt 115 g/m² and 300 g/m², kindly provided by peyer cover. The cardboard was kindly provided by Druckerei zu Altenburg.

Exhibition dates: 26/08–20/10/23
Opening with the interactive performance “Fishing for Yellow” by Hyesu Son, the “Yellow Quiz” by Kelly Diepenbrock and cool yellow drinks: 26/08/23, 15:00–20:00 
Sundowner – an unconventional wine tasting with Manuela dos Santos: 21/09/23, 18:30 
Banana Museum Sorry to See You Split So Soon, Talk by Anna Broujean: 28/09/23, 19:00
Butter Better Come, Workshop with April Gertler: 07/10/23, 17:30 

The Super Collective Market transforms A—Z into a temporary market space. For this first edition of Super Collective Market, the theme is YELLOW, and showcases a sunny selection of yellow items, including customized stamps, a kit to grow your own yellow pigment, limited edition prints, books, and textiles.

The A—Z Super Collective Market simultaneously explores community and commerce in graphic design. It is an initiative by the A—Z Collective, a space for communal practice running during 2023. The Collective is made up of a multidisciplinary group of creatives who want to explore different formats of collaboration and co-creation inspired by community-building methods such as Micro Solidarity, Liberating Structures, and Emergent Strategies.

The Super Collective Market features contributions by: Adrian Schiesser, Aggie Toppins, Agnieszka Węglarska, Alex Jordan, Andrea Iten, Anja Lutz, Anna Broujean, April Gertler, Barnabás Böröcz, Broos Stoffels, Buchstabenmuseum, Carlos J Navarro, Chris Rehberger / Double Standards, Constanze Hein, Dahm Lee, Daniela Burger, Diana Tsantekidou / RtmiS Studio, Die Planung / A Terv, Eunjung Kwak, Francesco Pini, Greg Cowling, Hanna Kang, Hannah Whitlow, Hans Brüderl, Hans Brüderl, Jenny Richards, Jens Bauermeister, Jens Strandberg, Johnny Chang, Judy Kaufmann, Juli Gudehus, Kakoii, Kathrin Krumbein, Kui Soon Park, Lisa Baumgarten, Louise Khadjeh-Nassiri, Manu dos Santos, Marin Griffith, Martin Duthey, Max Spielmann, Niamh McShane, Novo Typo / Mark van Wageningen, Paul Hutchinson, Pernilla Rozenberg, Pia Steiner, Primitive Hut, Raban Ruddigkeit, Ráhel Rudolf, Random Happiness, Sarah Boris, The Portland Stamp Company, Thies Wulf, Tim Ziola, Ulrike Mohr

Exhibition Dates: 15/06–02/08/23
Opening: Thursday 15/06/23, 19:00
Exhibition opening and Show & Tell event with Sarah Boris and visitors, co-creating the exhibition with everybody’s design items

In the spirit of A—Z Collective, we are inviting you to Sarah Boris ‘Show and Tell’ session: Exquisite Curiosities is an informal and collective moment to share an object, tool, book, stationary, art pencil or anything graphic that you love. It can be a project that you made and that was recently printed or a short text you read and want to share. The only rule is that it should be physical and that you can let other people touch and see it. In a round table-like discussion each one presented their chosen ‘show’ and ‘tell’ the story of why they brought it. The objects are then displayed at the A—Z space and form a collection of curiosities and treasured design items and creations. This new, informal and co-created exhibition will stay on display for up to six weeks.

Sarah Boris will also share some of her latest work, including a first presentation of her new Rainbow book.

The co-created exhibition includes contributions by: Alina Frieske, Alyssia Lou, Anja Lutz, Astrid Bornheim, Cassim Naomi, Damian Wayling, Ding Li, Duthey Martin, Emily Smith, Eunjung Kwak, Florentina, Francesco Pini, Huy Hoang Nguyen, Ioana Ferariu, Ivana Jecmenica, Kelly Diepenbrock, Kyoko Takemura, Lisa Baumgarten, Li Ling Yu, Liyana, Lucienne Roberts, Lun Jing Ru, Manuela dos Santos, Marta Savignano, Molly Haig, Natalie Davis, Patrick Thomas, Ràhel Rudolf, Sarah Boris, Sonja Knecht, Sooj Heo, Svenja Prigge, Quentin Schmerber, Tjaša Cizej, Wang Yixi, Wang Peiyuan, Yang Jingyuan, Yu Can.

A—Z opened a new chapter during the year of 2023, with the intention to expand, to experiment, to open up A—Z to a more communal practice and space. We believe this is responding to a lot of the challenges we have been facing in the previous years, as designers, curators, artists and audience.

Founded in 2019 by Anja Lutz, the exhibition and programming space on Torstr. has generated more than 20 exhibitions and programming and reached hundreds of people with the vision of expanding our understanding of what graphic design can be. In 2023 we were following a deep-seeded wish to make a more explicitly collective and transparent design space — a gathering place that reflects our desire for connection, in turn transforming how design can be. We were welcoming the wider community to help us shape this vision.

We began in March with a series of three events with the intention to develop a structure, a practice and a community to shift the way A—Z is run — creatively, logistically, financially and interpersonally. We experienced some magic and inspiring events with our supportive community, joining with ideas, dreams, expertise and critique to develop where this takes us and how it can shape us.

In Session One WHAT IF … EXPLOSION on 09/03/23 Emily Smith held space for 20+ designers and design aficionados to collect communal desires, imaginations, and ideation expertise. The collective brilliance of the groupmind filled up various paper sizes. Rearranged and diagrammed, sketched, and hung high, the potential of a more collective way of working was palpable.

In Session Two STRUCTURES AND TOOLS on 16/03/23 Jocelyn Ames led 25+ of us through the theory and practice of collective decision-making, working with consent, decentralized organizational structures, and other concepts for intentional gatherings. Sounds dry? Anything but! “Relationships are built at the speed of trust” to quote Rev. Jennifer Bailey. We left the premises with a deep resonance connecting us all.

Session Three FOCUS: SHAPE-MAKING on 15/04/23 facilitated by Emily Smith, Jocelyn Ames, Anja Lutz and Ioana Ferariu was largely inspired by the phrase “Good Enough for Now, Safe Enough to Try” — allowing us to move from the abstract and complex to the concrete and immediate. From Vision Statements on a napkin we explored event ideas and developed self-organized, decentralized Calls to Action.

A—Z COLLECTIVE is an intiative by Anja Lutz, Emily Smith and Jocelyn Ames, with active engagement from Ioana Ferariu, Molly Haig, Francesco Pini, Gregory Cowling, Eunjung Kwak, Ivana Jecmenica, Kelly Diepenbrock, Lisa Baumgarten, Alina Frieske, Pia Steiner, Manu dos Santos all participants of the events and its growing community.

Projects of the A—Z COLLECTIVE:
Sarah Boris: Exquisite Curiosities, 15/06–02/08/23
Super Collective Market No.1: Yellow, 26/08–20/10/23
Recipes for Connecting, 23/11/2023–24/02/2024
… and many smaller and bigger events

The A—Z COLLECTIVE  was officially wrapped-up with a Happy Ending workshop facilitated by Jocelyn Ames on 02/03/24

Thursday 04/05/23, 19:00
Talk and exhibition by Alex Jordan
The presentation was followed by a Q&A and a discussion over drinks at the FLIPPER Bar counter.
Monday 15/05/23 Informal meeting with Alex Jordan in the exhibition

In the spirit of our new activities of A—Z COLLECTIVE we are very happy to welcome Alex Jordan at Counter Session #5. We want to celebrate that we are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us and Alex Jordan is truly one of the pioneers of collective design work.

Alex Jordan was a member of the renowned design studio “Grapus” (1970–1990) in Paris, a studio of graphic activists with a strong leftist political agenda that worked initially for the French Communist Party, socialist towns and workers unions and later increasingly for cultural and social institutions. Besides their political commitment, the studio was also known for their practice of a non-hierarchical division of labor, the joint signature of their work and their co-designed projects, posters and actions, that mixed politics with pleasure. After the group broke up, Alex Jordan co-founded the design collective “Nous Travaillons Ensemble”, that continued the work of political, social and cultural engagement and actions in an environment of collective co-creation. Humor continues to be an important part of his work, as is the use of provocation, hand-drawn type and images with vibrant colours.

Alex Jordan will give a short talk about his current, his ideas on collaboration and their future perspectives. The talk will be in German (with some sprinkles in English and French) and will be followed by a conversation with the audience, that will give us the chance to learn from his experience. As Alex’s hearing is impaired we will collect questions to him beforehand, to facilitate the conversation. Please send your questions by May 3rd. We will end the evening – as always – with informal talks and drinks served at the Flipper Bar counter.

Alex Jordan is a German graphic designer and photographer (*1947 in Saarbrücken). He graduated from the Düsseldorf Art Academy. (Diploma, master student of Joseph Beuys). In 1976 he emigrated to France and since 1980 joined and co-directed the graphic arts collective Grapus (1970 to 1990). Together with his colleagues Jean-Paul Bachollet, Pierre Bernard, Gerard Paris-Clavel and François Miehe, he received the Grand National Prize for Graphic Design in 1991.
After the breakup of “Grapus”, Alex Jordan co-founded the studio “Nous Travaillons Ensemble” together with Ronit Meirovitz and Anette Lenz, members of his work group at “Grapus”. Today, he and Valérie Debure continue to seek strong visual communication responses to social challenges. Alex Jordan is also one of the founders of the Parisian photography collective “Le bar Floréal-photographie” (1985 until 2014) and the multidisciplinary association “La Forge”. He is a member of the AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale) and was professor of visual communication at the Berlin-Weissensee School of Art from 1993 to 2013.

Thursday 16/02/23, 19:00
Cyberfeminism Index
Lecture Performance with Mindy Seu
The presentation was followed by a Q&A and a discussion over drinks at the FLIPPER Bar counter.

The history of the internet is often overfocused on the grandfathers who created its architecture and protocol. But the internet is more than a network of cables, servers, and computers—it is an environment that shapes and is shaped by its inhabitants and their use. In Cyberfeminism Index, a variety of hackers, scholars, artists, and activists consider how humans might reconstruct themselves by way of technology through more than 700 short entries of radical techno-critical activism.  Both a vital introduction for laypeople and a robust resource guide for educators, Cyberfeminism Index—an anti-canon, of sorts—celebrates the multiplicity of practices that fall under this imperfect categorization and makes visible cyberfeminism’s long-ignored origins and its expansive legacy.

Mindy Seu is a designer and technologist based in New York City, currently teaching as an Assistant Professor at Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts and Critic at Yale School of Art. Her expanded practice involves archival projects, techno-critical writing, performative lectures, design commissions, and close collaborations. Mindy’s ongoing Cyberfeminism Index, which gathers three decades of online activism and net art, was commissioned by Rhizome and presented at the New Museum in its online form, and its print form is a recipient of a Graham Foundation Grant.

Thursday 08/12/22, 19:00
Family Trees & Sound Clouds
Visual Lecture Performance with Ilka Helmig and Johannes Bergerhausen

Who invented “writing”? How many writing systems are there in the world? How do they relate to the spoken languages and their individual sounds? Why are only half of them available on computers and smartphones? What are the aerodynamics of the pronunciation of human sounds? Why do pictograms always function simultaneously as ideograms? And what would a complete family tree of writing systems look like?

These and other questions on the languages we read, speak and hear, will be the topic of a visual lecture performed by artist Ilka Helmig and designer Johannes Bergerhausen, who will be presenting some findings of their research and projects on writing systems, Unicode, languages and the visualisation of the aerodynamics of human sounds.

The presentation will be followed by a discussion over drinks at the FLIPPER Bar counter.

Talk will be in German, slides in English.

Ilka Helmig (*1971) studied visual communication and fine arts in Nuremberg and Bonn. Since 2007 professor for visual conception and drawing at FH Aachen. Her work has been shown, among others, at the National Museum of Nairobi, Ludwig Forum Aachen, Bienal de la Pintura Ecuador, Karst Gallery Plymouth, Leopold-Hoesch Museum Düren, Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg. 2018 Artist in Residence Graz, Steiermark. 2019 West Museum for contemporary art, The Hague. 2020 Artist in Lab fellow of Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. Since 2018 board member of And She Was Like: BÄM!.

Johannes Bergerhausen (*1965) studied visual communication at FH Düsseldorf. From 1993 to 2000, he lived and worked in Paris. 1998 research grant of CNAP, Paris. Since 2002 Professor of Typography at HS Mainz. 2004 decodeunicode.org. 2011 “Die Schriftzeichen der Welt”. 2014 “Digital Cuneiform”. Since 2014 visiting professor at ANRT in Nancy, France. Since 2016 Missing Scripts Project, since 2018 worldswritingsystems.org 2019 “Missing Scripts”, West Museum for contemporary art, The Hague. 2020 “Picto-, Ideo-”.

Thursday 13/10/22, 19:00
Inverse – A Yearly Ritual
Talk and Record Launch with Florian Dombois

In “The Art of Looking Sideways” (2001) its author Alan Fletcher makes a plea for thinking graphic design from the perspective of white space, of the not-printed areas. He does so in reference to the Japanese concept of Ma 間 (negative space) which is the interval that gives shape to the whole. In Counter Session #2 this idea will be explored and inhabited:

Every year, when summer time changes to winter time at the end of October, all public clocks are stopping. Every year at this very moment there is no public time between 3 am and 3 am in the night. A moment of technical efficiency resulting in a poetic standstill has become the material for a yearly ritual, scored by the artist Florian Dombois. Together with the composers Saskia Bladt, Alexej Retinsky, Didier Rotella, Olga Bochikhina and also with Christoph Israel and Meret Becker, he developed musical intros for the hour without a name, that are now published as vinyl records.

For the release of the records with the Berlin publishing house The Green Box, Dombois will present the ritual and contextualize it with the history of public time and its meaning, that goes far beyond our wristwatches. E.g. in the July-Revolution of 1830 Parisian were shooting on public clocks to make authority stop and history take another track. Or in 2016 Erdogan decided to let Turkey not return from summer time to winter time and thus synchronizing with Russia, where Stalin did the same in 1930.

After the talk, drinks will be served by Flipper Bar and Florian will offer a little DIY workshop where you can bring you own clock and learn how to make it run backward.

We look forward to having you come, take part in the conversation and be prepared for the upcoming change of time at October 30, 2022.

Florian Dombois (*1966, Berlin) has focused on wind, time, labilities, and tectonic activity. His artistic practice includes a wide variety of media and repetitively articulates in happenings and sound installations. 2010 he received the German Sound Art Prize.

Thursday 18/08/2022, 19:00
“Ever since the days of Mrs. Gutenberg …” 
Panel Discussion: MMS (Maryam Fanni, Matilda Flodmark, Sara Kaaman) in conversation with Gerda Breuer and Madeleine Morley

Departing from their book “Natural Enemies of Books – A Messy History of Women in Printing and Typography”, feminist graphic design research collective MMS invite colleagues to the A—Z Counter Sessions for a conversation on graphic design histories beyond the male-dominated canon. 

“Ever since the days of Mrs. Gutenberg, women have been involved in the art of printing” writes the group Distaff Side in 1937 in their preface of the book “Bookmaking on the Distaff Side” offering a satirical, feminist, re-writing of book history. Decades later, design historian Martha Scotford responded to patriarchal and capitalist design history writing by inventing the concept of “messy history”, which could serve to acknowledge many more experiences and trajectories than those fitting into conventional design history books. Not only have individual women designers been structurally obscured in written design history, but also social relations and collective activities that deny or go beyond individual success stories.

This evening is dedicated to a collegial conversation about experiences from attempts made to contribute to graphic design history with names and stories that can allow for more accurate ways of understanding the past, present and future of the field. Invited guests are design historian and writer Gerda Breuer, co-author of “Women in Graphic Design, 1890–2012”, and design writer Madeleine Morley, for a discussion on women and labor histories of graphic design, collective struggles, research strategies, and history writing today and tomorrow.

The panel will be followed by a workshop where copies of “Natural Enemies of Books – A Messy History of Women in Printing and Typography” can be coloured along the edges using the traditional technique of marbling paper.

MMS is a Stockholm-based group of graphic designers Maryam Fanni, Matilda Flodmark and Sara Kaaman, collaborating since 2012 on investigations and writings on graphic design histories from feminist and labour history perspectives. They are the editors of “Natural Enemies of Books – A Messy History of Women in Printing and Typography” (Occasional Papers, 2020).

Gerda Breuer is a historian of art and design history and a writer based in Aachen. She was a professor at the University of Wuppertal until her retirement, along with a number of teaching positions and guest professorships in Germany and abroad. Her research and publications are devoted in particular to applied art, design, architecture and industrial culture of the 19th and 20th centuries. She is, together with Julia Meer, the author of “Women in Graphic Design, 1890–2012” (jovis Verlag, 2012).

Madeleine Morley is a Berlin-based writer, editor, and researcher originally from London. She is especially interested in histories of design, media, and feminism, often seeking to combine the tools of journalism and archival research. She was previously senior editor at AIGA’s Eye on Design, founding editor of Futuress magazine, and has also worked as an editor for magCulture and It’s Nice That.

Exhibition Dates: 16/03—23/06/22
The exhibition is a research-in-progress that will continuously develop and expand. It invites the visitors to engage and contribute to the research. Six online panels complement the program.

Revealing » Recording » Reflecting is a speculative research on generations of women graphic designers from Southwest Asia and North Africa, and diaspora. The project uses the exhibition platform as an editorial space to collect, reveal, retell and record the work and untold stories of the women graphic designers, calligraphers, typographers and illustrators who play key roles in shaping and rethinking visual and material culture of the region.

The exhibition is planned as a book editing platform, a research lab to conduct a series for collaborative investigations, and a space for interactions, meetings, and discovery. Six panel discussions will be designed and moderated by the four main researchers and activists Dr. Huda AbiFarès, Dr. Yasmine Nachabe Taan, Dr. Bahia Shehab and Soukeina Hachem. The panels will revolve around the themes: Visual Storytelling about Women by Women; Ladies of Letters; Image-Making for Social Engagement and Empowerment; and Navigating Diasporic Identities and Practices.

Online Panels

Wednesday 16/03/22, 19:00–20:30
REVEALING RECORDING REFLECTING: Introduction
Opening online panel with Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Dr. Yasmine Nachabe Taan, Dr. Bahia Shehab, and Soukeina Hachem
View the recording of the panel here.

24/03/22, 19:00–20:30
VISUAL STORYTELLING: ABOUT WOMEN, BY WOMEN
Online panel moderated by Dr. Yasmine Nachabe Taan
View the recording of the panel here.

Thursday 14/04/22, 20:00–21:30
LADIES OF LETTERS: CROSSING AND CONNECTING GENERATIONS
Online panel moderated by Dr. Bahia Shehab
View the recording of the panel here.

Thursday 28/04/22, 19:00–20:30
IMAGE-MAKING: BEHIND THE LINES OF ENGAGED GRAPHIC DESIGN
Online panel moderated by Soukeina Hachem
View the recording of the panel here.

Thursday 12/05/22, 19:00–20:30
WOMEN DESIGNERS IN DIASPORA: NAVIGATING MULTIPLE IDENTITIES & PRACTICES
Online panel moderated by Dr. Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès
View the recording of the panel here.

Thursday 19/05/22, 19:00–20:30
REVEALING RECORDING REFLECTING: Conclusion
Online panel by Dr. Huda AbiFares with Yasmine Nachabe Taan, Bahia Shehab, Soukeina Hachem
View the recording of the panel here.

Open Call for Contributions

You are invited to contribute to this research by suggesting names and links about female designers who contributed to the design practice and visual culture in the SWANA region and diaspora since the 1950s. The research looks for work that engages feminists narratives and community building.
Thank you for sending your suggestions to mail@a-z-presents.com and please let us know how you would like to be listed as contributor.

Researchers

Dr. Huda AbiFarès is the Founding Director of the Khatt Foundation and Khatt Books publishers, in Amsterdam. She holds degrees in graphic design and design history from Leiden University (PhD), Yale University (MFA), and Rhode Island School of Design (BFA). She works as independent researcher, writer, designer, design curator and publisher. 

Dr. Yasmine Nachabe Taan is an Associate Professor of Art and Design History at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. She is currently Visiting Professor at Bilkent University in Turkey. She holds a PhD in Art History and Communication Studies from McGill University. Her interdisciplinary research cuts across the fields of visual culture, gender politics, photography and design history with a focus on Lebanon and the Middle East. She is author of a number of books on design and photography.

Dr. Bahia Shehab is an artist and author based in Cairo. She is Professor of design and founder of the graphic design program at The American University in Cairo. Her work has been exhibited internationally and has received a number of international awards including the BBC’s 100 women’s list, a TED Senior Fellowship, a Prince Claus Award, and the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture. Her latest publications include You Can Crush the Flowers: A Visual Memoir of the Egyptian Revolution and the award winning co-authored book A History of Arab Graphic Design.

Soukeina Hachem is a Moroccan designer whose work in design and in culture aims to create social and systems change. Her diverse work portfolio includes interiors, furniture and graphic design. In 2012, Soukeina founded SHAPE, a strategic consulting agency that merges strategy and design, putting the user at the heart of its work process. She also initiated Casablanca Design Week in 2017 then 2019, a biennale of design,  that involved more than 100 designers in more than 25 spaces in the city, to showcase, reflect but also  to gather communities around on ongoing designers projects.

This research is supported by Khatt Foundation, AFAC, ACSS, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and A—Z Presents

Exhibition Dates: 15/12/21–10/03/22
Opening: Wednesday 14/12/21, 19:00
Panel discussion Collecting Graphic Design: Thursday 10/02/22, 19:00
with Christina Thomson (Kunstbibliothek Berlin), Julia Meer (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg) und Jens Müller (Author of Collecting Graphic Design)
Closing event: Thursday 10/03/22, 18:00–20:00

The exhibition Graphic.Designers.Collectors. transforms A—Z into a chamber of collections and curiosities. Over 30 invited graphic designers are presenting their own personal collectibles: from poster stamps to toilet paper, fake documents and queer fanzines – many surprising, very specific and above all unique personal collections and their stories displayed for appreciation and reflection on the topic and its relation to graphic design.

Collect: To gather, put together. Collections are usually very personal – be it for the objects, or for the memories they carry along with them. Collections are also biographical, they not only contain the story of the collected items themselves, but also the one of who collects, who created, or who owned them before. In that way, the past, cultures, memories and emotions also become an integral part of the collections.

But if collectors are designers, what can their collections tell us about graphic design? And what could graphic designers possibly collect? Graphic design includes a wide range of skills and media. It interacts, counteracts and reacts with many other disciplines, and it is precisely this diversity one can expect to see in these collections.

Whether their collections influence directly the work they do, serve as inspiration, or reflect the conceptual approaches of their practice, in the exhibition Graphic.Designers.Collectors. we have the chance to peak into selected items from over 30 different collections of graphic designers, and draw our own conclusions – and collect personal inspirations.

Graphic.Designers.Collectors showcases collections by: Hala Al Afsaa, Sally Alassafen, Anna Berkenbusch, Sarah Boris, Anky Brandt, Pauline Clancy, Niko Courtelis, Sara De Bondt, Barbara Dechant, Philippe Delangle, Ronny Duquenne, Markus Etienne, Kinda Ghannoum, Jason Grant, Juli Gudehus, Sarah Illenberger, Sara Kaaman, Rob Keller, Na Kim, Oliver Klimpel, Sonja Knecht, Anja Lutz, Franziska Morlok, Fraser Muggeridge, Heinrich Müller, Jens Müller, Isabel Naegele, Peter Nencini, Lucienne Roberts, Bernard Stein, Szymon Stemplewski, Katharina Sussek, Patrick Thomas, Andrea Tinnes, Niklaus Troxler, Sven Völker, Henning Wagenbreth, Mark van Wageningen, Margaret Warzecha.

Watch the Guided Tour.

Exhibition Dates: 10/11—07/12/21 
Opening and Talk: 07/12/21, 19:00
Anita Di Bianco in Conversation with  Florian Wüst and Anna Bromley

The Error is Regretted marks the 20-year anniversary of Anita Di Bianco’s project Corrections and Clarifications. 

Corrections and Clarifications is an ongoing newsprint project, an edited compilation of daily revisions, retractions, re-wordings, distinctions and apologies to print and online news from September 2001 to the present. A catalog of lapses in naming and classification, of tangled catchphrases, patterns of mis-speech and inflection, connotation and enumeration. An intermittent newspaper without headlines, a distillation of the predictive patterns and algorithmic amplifications of the last two decades, from fake news to the attention economy.

With this project, Di Bianco offers credit to „ … those seekers, processors, middle managers, and ultimate regulators of public information who take it upon themselves (or impose it upon others) to re-name, re-classify, disguise, de-fuse or be de-briefed; who find clever metaphors to obfuscate, euphemize and mystify; who disseminate information according to political structures coincident with particular economic interests, who consent to use language to dismiss, excuse, cushion, cover and obscure the consequences of actions and the submerged structures behind events. And ultimately who, regardless of stated intentions, occasionally reveal something, piece by piece, through slips in language and naming systems.“

The exhibition features a new 96 page newspaper edition of Corrections and Clarifications comprising English- and German-language news corrections from June 2020 – October 2021.

Previous volumes of Corrections and Clarifications have been produced, exhibited, and distributed in numerous cities, languages, and art institutions since 2001, including KW Berlin, Kunsthaus Zürich, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, STUK, Camberwell College London, Springerin Magazin, Extra City, collectorspace Istanbul, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Distributed by Printed Matter, New York; held in the archival collection of Sammlung KIOSK Kunstbibliothek Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Exhibition Dates: 09/09–04/11/21 
Opening and Presentation by Lucienne Roberts: 09/09/21, 19:00
Discussion with Lucienne Roberts “Hello You!” about women, age and graphic design: 02/11/21, 19:00

Perhaps it’s not you, it’s me. transforms A—Z into a space of humour and heartbreak. Based around a love letter from practitioner Lucienne Roberts to her long-standing partner Graphic Design, the installation is part critique, part provocation, part celebration of graphic design and what it can do.

Drawing upon the language of love and leave-takings and set against the finite nature of life, Lucienne takes us on an intensely personal journey from early utopian zeal to dystopian dilemma and back again. As Lucienne says ‘Graphic design is always political. That was my mantra (it still is). It’s the most egalitarian of art forms, helping to disseminate messages seen and used by all. I embraced this responsibility (I still do) and, as a maker of ephemeral art, I was comfortable that my endeavours ended in the bin. But now we’re all having to consider existential crises of a more significant kind. The future of work, climate change, Covid-19 remind us that nothing lasts forever. Worse still, a realisation is dawning that much graphic design promotes and supports a system that is destroying the planet we call home. So, how should we respond as makers, friends, families, citizens of the world? What should we do – and stop doing? And what does this mean for the (still young) profession that I love so very much.

Talk by Lucienne Roberts
The Personal is the Political
Influenced as much by feminism as Swiss typography, Lucienne Roberts has always considered graphic design to be a political act. She shares a little of her graphic design journey from utopian zeal to dystopian dilemma, and ponders on what’s coming next.

Lucienne Roberts is founder of graphic design studio LucienneRoberts+ and co-founder of advocacy initiative GraphicDesign&, research and practice characterised by her abiding interest in definitions of ethical design. LR+ projects include exhibition design, books and identities for the Science Museum and Royal Academy of Arts. Lucienne’s books include Good: An Introduction to Ethics in Graphic Design and she was Typographer-in-Residence 2018 at ArtCenter, Los Angeles. GD& creates intelligent, vivid books and exhibitions that explore how graphic design connects with all other things. Recent GD& projects include Can Graphic Design Save Your Life? [Wellcome Collection, 2017] Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008–18 [the Design Museum, 2018]. Both were designed by LR+. Lucienne is a member of AGI and HonFISTD.

The bed in the exhibition is kindly provided by Bartmann Berlin

Exhibition Dates: 08/07—02/09/21 
Opening with Book Release and Presentation by Mark van Wageningen: 08/07/21, 19:00
Workshops: 10/07—27/07/21 

Novo Typo Offgrid Berlin
A DIY proposal for Creating a Self-Sufficient Graphic Design Studio

Mark van Wageningen / Novo Typo present his return to the three fundamental elements of analogue graphic design—letters, ink and paper—in an exhibition that offers designers a way to respond to the economic and individual vulnerabilities by means of an exercise in self-sustainability for graphic designers. During the whole exhibition period in July, Novo Typo Offgrid studio will be fully operational at A—Z, with Mark producing and recycling his own work.

The workshop-style exhibition is an opportunity to learn and to reflect on how to de-standardize and autonomize in order to be truly self-sufficient. On the background of this exercise lies the need to face a global overly complex system of production, supply chains and restrictive industrial standards, that have shown their dangerous disruptive effects, specially at the beginning of the pandemic.

Based on the core idea that a typographic design studio that designs and produces its own letters should also be able to make its own ink and paper, Novo Typo Offgrid Berlin will show how we can produce our own locally sourced paper and plant-based inks, in order to create our own tools and methods.

By independently selecting the raw materials for the production of paper and ink, a new and bespoke standard is defined. In the process, the designer and the artisan should be one and the same person, free to choose how to produce and visualize their designs, thereby regaining control over their end product.

Workshops
During the first month of the exhibition, Mark van Wageningen offered a series of free workshops – a D.I.Y. experiment in designing recycled paper, producing handmade plant-based ink, printing and soap making.

Book
“Novo Typo Offgrid” is the latest book by Mark van Wageningen. Aiming at inspiring the pursuit of different approaches in graphic design, the publication is an in-depth presentation of his concept of the self-sufficient design practice, which proposes a new standard for polychromatic typography by using plant-based ink and recycled paper. The book will be released at the opening of Novo Typo Offgrid Berlin exhibition, and will be available at bookshops and at The Green Box.

Mark van Wageningen is the founder of Novo Typo, a typographic design studio and font foundry based in Amsterdam. The design output of Novo Typo is a mix of commissions and self-initiated projects, and it has attracted the interest of a variety of international design magazines, blogs, and publications. As a self-proclaimed ambassador of digital and analogue multicolored typography, van Wageningen presents the work of Novo Typo in several international design conferences and festivals. He is the author of design awarded books, such as “Typewood”, “Novo Typo Color Book”, and “Type and Color”.

CONNECTING FROM A—Z joins twenty-eight designers in creating one diverse alphabet, as a way to connect during the recent period of social distancing. The process was a lively demonstration of their common passion for design, expressing their unique approaches and styles – with each individual designing one letter of the Roman alphabet.

The project was conceived as a chained event: Each designer received a letter, already designed by a colleague, and has been asked to design the following one in the alphabet. The previous letter could be used as an inspiration or connecting point of dialogue for the next design. Each letter was delivered within one day, making it a dynamic and playful experience.

The result is a wonderfully vibrant alphabet, comprising so many cool and funky letterforms, created by the following designers:
Franzi Bauer, Alex Branczyk, Barbara Dechant, Imad Gebrayel, Jason Grant (Inkahoots), Ilka Helmig & Johannes Bergerhausen, Frank Höhne, Na Kim, Christopher Knowles, Jungmyung Lee, Urs Lehni, Anja Lutz, Tine Melzer, Peter Nencini, Johanna Olm, So Jin Park, Francesco Pini, Rimini Berlin, Lucienne Roberts, Georg Rutishauser, Emily Smith, Patrick Thomas, Andrea Tinnes, Juliana Toro, Niklaus Troxler, Ferdinand Ulrich, Mark van Wageningen (Novo Typo)

CONNECTING FROM A—Z is now available as a free font

11/03–11/05/21 Claudia de la Torre: Books are Bridges
How can we still find ways to connect with each other? Can books play a role in this connection? And from where to where can they take us? For the show, book artist Claudia de la Torre has developed a strategy to bring people and ideas together. A participative, open, never-ending work that couldn’t exist without some form of contact. A book that will build itself throughout the duration of the show. The thickness, amount of pages, and content will depend on the contributors. A book that functions as a bridge that connects people, ideas, ways of ciculation and collaboration.

18/02–10/03/21 Andreas Koch: All my books. Andreas Koch has been designing over 100 books for artists since 2001. As books are difficult to show, Andreas Koch shows them himself and talks about fonts, colours, papers, bindings and more.

21/01–17/02/21 Albert Coers: Books To Do
A wall-installation of possible publications, a collection of ideas and material, alongside some artist books that have already been realized. Including the book and video work Du kannst mehr als du denkst [You can do more than you think]

26/11/20–19/01/21 Anja Lutz: Marginalia
Marginalia draws our attention to the overlooked elements that coexist in carefully designed books. Removing the text and images from a selection of art books designed by Anja Lutz in close collaboration with the individual artists, reveals the nondescript details: the margins, the edges, the backgrounds, the spaces between the lines … The quiet and yet eloquent remaining spaces seem to have their own language – that of an abstract visual poetry of books.

TIME FOR BOOKS
A space to enjoy, discover and discuss the art of making art books
A space to meet and learn from the designers behind the art books
A space to read, borrow for free, or buy art books

The current situation imposes so many challenges, yet we still can find something good about these times: more time for reading and enjoying books. And, instead of doing that all alone in the solitude of our homes, we want to offer a space where we can meet and share our passion for art, books & art books.

Until mid March, if you find time for a book, A—Z offers a space where you can envision art books as portable exhibitions to bridge the gap in time until great art exhibitions are open for visit again. So, come and browse through art books, sit down, read at length, enjoy a cup of tea, and share the time and space with us. There will be over 100 books from the The Green Box publisher as well as a selection of outstanding titles from various book designers available to read,and some also to borrow for free, or to take them home forever at a fair price.

Moreover, Time for Books is about sharing the knowledge and love for books, so at a scheduled and announced time, you will be able to meet graphic designers, view their art books and artistic installations of their work. With them you can engage in a one-to-one conversation about their making of books, get insights, tips, tricks, or attend mini workshops. Amongst the book designers to present their work are: Lamm & Kirch, Claudia de la Torre, Andreas Koch, Albert Coers, Georg Rutishauser (edition fink), Anja Lutz//Art Books and The Green Box.

Stay safe, grab a book!

Exhibition dates 08/10–19/11/20
Opening and Lecture-Performance by Tine Melzer 08/10/20, 19:00

In the project “Blumen sind geil” [Flowers are wicked], gestures come together that work with examplary conventions in dealing with flowers on a visual and linguistic level. Flowers are wicked because they can embody very different meanings. They are products of globalized trade and are everywhere where people celebrate, praise, seduce and mourn. In the exhibition a new wall installation with multiples is on display: Kummer & Melzer have transformed flower petals into patterns in collaboration with the Wolfensberger Zurich lithographic printing house. In the book “Blumen sind geil”, that is published at the occasion of the exhibition,  literary short texts come together with a series of photographic scenes, complementing, disturbing and distorting each other. It combines visual, sculptural and conceptual work with spelled-out language. The monologue-like texts meet with the images as sentences, thereby tilting their meanings.
At the opening Tine Melzer will give a short lecture on conceptual and linguistic-philosophical references between word and image, saying and showing. She gives an intro on the tilting of meanings, the so-called aspect seeing, and what this has to do with us.

Tine Melzer (*1978) is a Swiss author and lecturer at the Bern University of the Arts. In her work she combines philosophy of language with visual arts and literature. She studied Fine Arts and Philosophy in Amsterdam, received a scholarship at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten and completed her doctorate in England on Ludwig Wittgenstein and Gertrude Stein. From 2004–2009 she was a lecturer at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam. After working in Germany, England, Finland and the Netherlands she now lives in Zurich and is represented by literary agent Liepmann from Zurich.

Markus Kummer (1974) is a visual artist and materialises architectural, scenographic and interventional processes. He studied in Geneva, Basel and Bern and lives in Zurich.

Exhibition Dates 30/07—24/09/20
Opening 30/07/20, 19:00 with Zine Launch and Film Screening

Feminist Findings brings together the collective research of twenty-six womxn and non-binary people on the history of feminist publishing. The L.i.P. Collective—short for “Liberation in Print”—formed during the recent lock-down period. Spread over four continents and many time zones, its participants came together over the beams of their computer screens to dig through digital archives, searching for the missing histories of feminist journals, magazines, zines, newspapers, and newsletters. Feminist Findings presents the L.i.P. Collective’s research for the first time, taking the form of an exhibition and accompanying zine.

Scanning the gallery at A—Z, you’ll discover the struggles and victories of a 1980s San Francisco newsletter for Asian/Pacific lesbians, solve the mystery of an underground tearoom in Paris, hear from the co-founder of India’s first feminist press, learn how writing a feminist history of Swiss graphic design might start by calling up a neighbor, and much, much more. A wunderkammer brimming with photographs, artefacts, logos, magazines, quotes, excerpts, resources, pages, footnotes, and digressions, Feminist Findings is a messy, knotted web manifesting its own collective research process. It showcases stories around twentieth century publications from across the world, including Agenda, Al-Raida, Aspekt, Bridges, Carnets des Nanas Beurs, Chrysalis, Common Lives/Lesbian Lives, Courage, Di Froy, DYKE A Quarterly, Distaff, Emanzipation, Ewa, Froyen Shtim, Gidra, Heresies, Leïla, Manushi, Nova, Phoenix Rising, Sinister Wisdom, Sorcières, Soviet Women, and Spare Rib.

The L.i.P Collective workshop was initiated by le Signe, the National Centre of Graphic Design in Chaumont, France, as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Over the course of six weeks, its group of isolated strangers became a tightly-knit research unit, bonding over shared interests, rooting for one another’s projects, and celebrating together each and every new find. It was led by Nina Paim and Corin Gisel of common-interest along with design journalist Madeleine Morley.

The L.i.P Collective is Zenobia Ahmed, Yanchi Huang, Sophia Yuet See, Silva Baum, Phoebe Eustance, Pauline Piguet, Noemi Parisi, Nina Paim, Naïma Ben Ayed, Mujgan Abdulzade, Mio Kojima, Maya Ober, Mariachiara De Leo, Madeleine Morley, Loraine Furter, Klaudia Mazur, Floriane Misslin, Fanny Maurel, Eugénie Zuccarelli, Elham Namvar, Delphine Bedel, Corin Gisel, Clara Amante, Carolyn Kerchof, Barbora Demovičová, and Amy Gowen.

Curated and edited by Futuress:
Launching Autumn 2020, Futuress is an online magazine and community space for design research. The feminist publishing platform is founded by Nina Paim and Corin Gisel (of the Basel-based design research practice common-interest) alongside journalist and editor Madeleine Morley. The once-hidden stories collected in the Feminist Findings zine—which the Futuress team has worked with the authors to craft into accessible storytelling formats—will be republished online via Futuress this upcoming Fall, adhering to its guiding philosophy of making design research public.

Exhibition Dates 29/05–22/07/20
Soft Opening 28/05/20, 17:00–20:00
Presentation by Na Kim 02/07/20, 19:00

Transitory Workplace 56 transforms A—Z into Na Kim’s studio for fifty-six days. It presents her temporary working activities at a provisional workplace and the encounters of others with diverse purposes. While Na Kim usually spends around half the year traveling due to the breadth of her work and the places it takes her, she is now confronted with the situation of the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. This entrusts the body to a time of uncertainty. The anxiety felt by being enclosed in a physical environment naturally probes solitude in daily life and summons the space of memories. By allowing her to set her own rules for this private workplace for fifty-six days in a public gallery space, this project makes abstract uncertainty concrete with physical space and daily action, demonstrating an attitude of observation and appreciation for the value of everyday life. Transitory Workplace 56 exists beyond the realm of physical space and is instead the accumulation of time in space. It mediates the intersection of these two layers of experience and attempts to capture, collect, document, and present them. 

Transitory Workplace 56 is for all kinds of uncertainty.
Transitory Workplace 56 is about solitude for togetherness. 
Transitory Workplace 56 is for learning by doing and sharing.
Transitory Workplace 56 is for re-projecting and re-producing.
Transitory Workplace 56 keeps daily documentation of 56 days.
Transitory Workplace 56 is for communication with the outside world in a private way.

The title of the work originates from her 2012 project Transitory Workplace 53, from when she migrated back to Korea, ending a period of many years spent living in the Netherlands. Na Kim has been interested in the ideas of space and its extension. She previously explored these various questions in works such as Situation Room (2010), Transitory Workplace 53 (2012), and To Be a Loner (2015). In her recent solo exhibition in a children’s gallery, Bottomless Bag (2020), the large-scale installation remained under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Staying in the bare, white cube for more than a month and recollecting her previous works acted as a catalyst for a newer version of Transitory Workplace in 2020.

During the exhibition period, Na Kim will lead her daily work at A—Z, dividing the space into different zones of activity as part of her design and creatively tackling the current safety measures. She will keep a precise schedule with daily presentations of her work exercise and carry out projects in her studio-gallery. By appointment, she will arrange personal meetings. 

Na Kim is a graphic designer currently based in Seoul and Berlin, as a member of Table Union. She has focused on the visual language on autonomous works as well as various cultural commissioned projects. Kim was responsible for the concept and design of GRAPHIC magazine from 2009 till 2011 and has initiated series projects based on her monograph, SET since 2015. She has held solo exhibitions, such as Bottomless Bag (2020), Black and White (2019), Red, Yellow, Blue (2017), SET (2015), Choice Specimen (2014), Found Abstracts (2011). Besides, Kim has been a curator for Brno Biennale, Chaumont Festival, Seoul International Typography Biennale, and Fikra Graphic Design Biennial. Kim also worked on projects with COS, Hermès, ÅLAND, and many other clients, and Kim’s works have been invited to international exhibitions at MMCA, V&A, MoMA, Milan Triennale Museum, Die Neue Sammlung, etc. Na Kim has been a member of AGI since 2016.

Exhibition Dates 15/02–14/05/20

Opening Saturday 15/02/20 Niklaus Troxler sticking tape-images to improvised music in a Live Performance:
at 16:00 to Silke Eberhard (altosax) and Nikolaus Neuser (trumpet) and
at 18:00 to Almut Kühne (voice)

Presentation by Niklaus Troxler 05/03/20, 19:00

Niklaus Troxler has been creating images with black and coloured adhesive tapes for the past three years. These Tape Works excite the designer and artist very much, as they represent the true basic elements of design: colour and form. Sometimes the images are free and abstract, sometimes they evoke landscapes or signs. And they are always musical. As in music, they are compositions and also improvisations. The resulting colour compositions as well as the relationships between the individual forms create the specific sound of his works.

Niklaus Troxler is an internationally renowned Swiss graphic designer who specialises in poster design, corporate design, illustration and architectural murals. Since the mid-1960s he has organised  jazz events and in 1975 founded the Willisau Jazz Festival, which he also directed until 2010. The Festival offered Troxler the perfect opportunity to merge his two passions of graphic design and jazz music into one unique concept. “Everything that fascinates me about jazz music, is also what interests me in design: rhythm, sound, contrast, interaction, experiment, improvisation, composition, individuality. I have been organising jazz concerts for as long as I have been designing. Both activities have inspired me since the mid-1960s, and still have lost none of their fascination.” Troxler’s posters are layered with visual puns and musical metaphors, executed in hand crafted illustration and typography. Silkscreen and lithographic prints are the main techniques that Troxler uses to communicate both figurative and abstract ideas created from paper cut-outs, collage, stencils and brush and line drawings.

Exhibition Dates 28/01–11/02/20
Opening with Presentations by Imad Gebrayel, Stefanie Rau and Madeleine Morley 28/01/20, 18:30
Workshop with Antonia Schneemann and Lisa Baumgarten 01/02/20, 15:00–18:00
Book Release and Reading “Real-time Realist #2” with Jungmyung Lee, Lieven Lahaye 06/02/20, 19:00
Closing Event: Reading and Book Sale, 11/02/20, 19:00

Teaching Design Conversations is a temporary library and conversational format about design education from intersectional feminist and decolonial perspectives. Building on the online platform Teaching Design, the two-week long format CONVERSATIONS provides access to literature in a physical space as a framework to come together and connect with like-minded design educators – such as ourselves – and everybody interested in the field. Let’s share our experiences, doubts, questions, knowledge, concepts, methods and references to transform current structures!

THE TEMPORARY LIBRARY
The temporary library at A—Z from 28/01/–11/02/20 has grown from the collectively gathered resources from our online platform Teaching Design. The books will be compiled from Berlin libraries and provided by Pro qm. We warmly invite you to use the space to browse through the literature, read, listen and discuss!
Visit the library Fridays from 13:00–18:00 or make a personal appointment via info@teaching-design.net

THE SPACE
The A–Z space will be transformed by commissioned work by artists and designers Benedetta Crippa (Stockholm), Peter Behrbohm (Berlin) and Fabrice Höfgen following core principles of Teaching Design: The temporary library offers access to resources to develop transformative strategies, a safe space to ask critical questions and start a dialogue and the tools to share and exchange knowledge. (For more info on the artists see below.)

THE PROGRAM

Tuesday 28/01/20, 18:30, OPENING with contributions by

Imad Gebrayel, a Lebanese designer and researcher based in Berlin whose projects revolve around identity politics, migration and representation. Imad will be discussing modes of exclusion and coloniality of power in both EU and Non-EU design education systems based on his experience in Lebanon, the Netherlands and Germany. 

Stefanie Rau, who moves with her work between the fields of graphic design, text-based artistic practices and teaching. In a form of auto-critique Stefanie will reflect on her experiences and involvement in self-organized educational projects and her work at the Weißensee Academy of Art where she started teaching in 2019.

Madeleine Morley, a Berlin-based design writer, editor and researcher. Madeleine’s talk will discuss writing about (and around) design history, and the things that often get in the way. She will describe her own process of looking for gaps, following the labour, practising care, and working both with and against the archive.

Saturday 01/02/20, 15:00–18:00, WORKSHOP with Antonia Schneemann and Lisa Baumgarten

Why do I do what I do – like I do it – and not differently?
In this workshop we move from the theoretical examination of design theory to practice. Starting from the participants’ and our own individual experiential knowledge, we will test methods, reflect on our individual standpoint(s) and skills, and discuss the question: How do we want to learn and teach?
The workshop length is approx. 2 hours, there will be an additional hour to drink tea and reflect on the outcomes.
The number of spots for the workshops is limited.
Please register at info@teaching-design.net by 25/01/20.

Antonia Schneemann has been working as an art mediator since 2014. Amongst other projects Antonia conceived and directed educational programming at the National Museums in Berlin. As a freelance art educator, she conducts workshops and develops formats for museums, associations or educational institutions with a focus on group processes and the development of methods. She holds an M.A. in Arts Education from the Zurich University of the Arts (Switzerland).

Thursday 06/02/20, 19:00, BOOK RELEASE and READING 

Real-time Realist #2 with Jungmyung Lee and Lieven Lahaye
Published by J-LTF Press, “Real-Time Realist” is an experiment in the range of human affect through typography, visual art, and contemporary writing, based on psychologist Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions. This publication is, also, a type specimen of linguistic significance which showcases typefaces produced by Jung-Lee Type Foundry. The second issue explores ECSTASY, JOY, SERENITY, and LOVE, The Yellow Wheel, with contributions from invited artists distilling the aforesaid emotions.

Tuesday 11/02/20, 19:00, Closing Event – READING and BOOK SALE

We will sum up our two-weeks exhibition with reading selected texts from our library which will also be published in a printed reader. The books provided by Proqm will be sold during the event.

FURTHER EVENTS are going to be announced via Instagram @teaching.design

INFO

Teaching Design started as a visual bibliography on Instagram, focusing on design education from intersectional feminist and decolonial perspectives – initiated and edited by Lisa Baumgarten – designer (lisabaumgarten.de), educator and researcher – and Anja Neidhardt – co-creater of depatriarchisedesign.com, design journalist, and PHD candidate.
www.teaching-design.net

PARTNERS

Pro qm – thematische Buchhandlung, Almstadtstraße 48-50, 10119 Berlin, pro-qm.de
The title font “Calyces” was kindly provided by Charlotte Rohde
Cottonbee, ctnbee.com/de

ADDITIONAL ARTIST INFO

Benedetta Crippa runs her graphic design and research practice in Stockholm with work across the wide scope of visual communication. Her main area of research concerns ways in which graphic design can expand beyond current boundaries of methodology and aesthetics. She designs visual interventions for transformation and pleasure beyond dominant traditions to revisit ideas around beauty, form and power. Benedetta is currently guest teacher at Konstfack University as initiator of the first course of its kind on sustainability through visuality.
studiobenedettacrippa.com

Peter Behrbohm designs obstacles, digs for narrative fragments, thinks with hands and feet, constructs abnormal apparatus and installs fictions in public spaces. With his work he surgically intervenes public spaces as well as its routines.
www.peterbehrbohm.net

Fabrice Höfgen is a spatial designer focusing on the exploration of synergetic human interactions. Led by a fascination for the “inbetween”, the emotional, his practice aims to transgress conventional categories by queering spaces and environments.
www.instagram.com/fabricehoefgen/

Exhibition Dates 21/11/19–24/01/20
Performance with Tereza and Vit Ruller and Jessica Deira 21/11/19, 19:00
Open Debate with The Rodina, Prem Krishnamurthy and Anja Lutz 22/11/19, 19:00

Amsterdam-based studio The Rodina is interested in temporalities of design (when does design start, how does it last, and what does it mean ‘it’s finished’?) and the labour behind it. During the opening, they performed together with The Hague based designer Yessica Deira to unwrap questions about the creative production and project-based labour. During a non-linear 3-hour-long event co-directed by the audience – the designers democratised the process of “situation making” and discuss together, when the work is actually finished. The Rodina use the performance to open a space that allows an exchange and personal encounter with each participant.
During the duration of the exhibition, visitors are invited to interact with the installation, and become part of the work and set-up at A–Z. Visitors can further place questions to The Rodina in the space that will be answered and added to the installation.
During the Open Debate guest, curator and graphic designer Prem Krishnamurthy discussed with The Rodina the notion of creative work, design processuality and continuity of projects. The discussion was organized as a nonhierarchical agora set up, where the audience members were welcome to share their experiences and discussed what the production of graphic design in capitalism is for them.

The Rodina (Tereza and Vit Ruller) is a post-critical design studio with an experimental practice drenched in strategies of performance art, play and subversion. Both in commissioned work and in autonomous practice, they activate and re-imagine a dazzling range of layered meanings across, below and beyond the surface of design. The Rodina invents ways in which experience, knowledge and relations are produced and preserved. In their work, Tereza and Vit often explore and investigate theoretical framework around Body presence, Labour, Surface, and Action.
The studio works mostly for the cultural clients such as Harvard GSD (USA), Sonic Acts Foundation (NL), and Hyuindai Card Library Soul (KR). Tereza is an educator at Design Academy Eindhoven (Society & Change) and together with Vit, they exhibit and give lectures internationally, amongst many other places at CalArts (USA), Cooper Union (USA) a ZHDK (CH).
Yessica Deira is a graphic designer and DJ who experiments in re-constructing collective consciousness through design, film, sound and music.

Exhibition Dates 13/09—15/11/19
Presentation by Patrick Thomas 10/10/19, 19:00

PULP is the title of a new body of work made by Patrick Thomas in response to the reality of living in an age of ‘truth decay’. Interacting with randomly sourced daily newsprint — the traditionally respected source of factual information — he layers found, drawn and code-generated graphic forms in an aleatory way utilising the mechanical process of silkscreen printing.

Intentionally ambiguous, the resulting prints may be appreciated for their abstract beauty and as a celebration of the disappearing broadsheet newspaper format; however, they might also conceal a darker significance that suggests manipulation, concealment and censorship.

They are powerful graphic statements that document a moment in time whose aim is to ask more questions than provide answers, which, due to the unstable physical properties of the newsprint material, will continue to silently evolve over the years.

Patrick Thomas (Liverpool, GB) is a graphic artist, who lives and works in Berlin and is a professor at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart.

Exhibition Dates 15/06–06/09/19
Presentation by Jason Grant (Inkahoots) 14/06/19, 19:00
Public Discussion 29/08/19, 19:00 “Gestaltung und Solidarität – Wie kann Grafikdesign politisch sein?” with Mara Recklies, Susanne Beer (ZOFF) and Sandy Kaltenborn, presented by Fanzi Bauer und Toni Brell

In its second exhibition A—Z presents New Anthems VI (Berlin) – A New Anthem for Germany, an interactive installation by the Australian design collective Inkahoots, that invites creative participation in a public dialogue about the critique and construction of contemporary nationalism and national identity.

The installation displays the most commonly cited line in Das Lied der Deutschen (3. verse) by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, the current German national anthem: ‘Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das deutsche Vaterland’ [‘Unity and justice and freedom for the German fatherland’], where the words ‘Freiheit’ and ‘das deutsche Vaterland’ are omitted and replaced with LED screens enabling participants to input their own words, and rewrite the text. These contributions are catalogued online at newanthems.inkahoots.com.au and thus create a dynamic archive of debate around issues of national identity, inclusion and exclusion. The website enables real time listings of all contributions – in this way they are archived and can be viewed offsite by anyone. To participate SMS: 015735994499 to insert your contribution. Enter a word or short phrase for each LED screen separated by a comma: eg. ‘firstword, secondword’ or ‘short phrase, another short phrase’. The present installation uses a mix of historic letters from East- and West-Berlin from the collection of the Buchstabenmuseum.

The New Anthems installations affirm national identity as dynamic and constructed, rather than fixed and natural. To misquote Richard White (1981) Inventing Australia: “There is no ‘real’ Germany waiting to be uncovered. A national identity is an invention.” The work attempts to integrate graphic design’s potential regarding expressive modes of visual language with user generated digital inter­activity, as a relational artwork that functions as a forum for creative public dialogue and cultural critique.

Inkahoots is a Australian design studio focusing on creating democratic spaces for for productive social resistance and public dialogue. They ­col­laborate locally and internationally on projects of all sizes across a range of media, specialising in the creative intergration of physical and digital experiences. Born as a community access screenprinting studio/arts collective, Inkahoots continues to work for social change with adventurous visual communication. They are widely published and exhibited around the world. In Australia, Inkahoots’ work is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, the National Museum of Australia, the Queensland Art Gallery, and others.

New Anthems VI (Berlin) is a collaboration with Buchstabenmuseum Berlin.

Workshop Dates 06/05–10/05/19 “Template Culture – Inclusion, neutrality and the responsibility of design”, a workshop conceived by Anja Lutz, Rebekka Kiesewetter and Franziska Morlok, with students of Hyperwerk (Basel) and FH Potsdam.
Presentation by Rosa Menkman 06/05/19, 19:00
Presentation by Anja Kaiser: “Bodies of discourse” 07/05/19, 19:00

Today, templates play a role in all areas of design – an example are websites that can be built with content management systems and filled with seemingly arbitrary content. On the one hand, templates are practical, efficient and user friendly, but on the other hand they are also restrictive and by no means neutral: templates, programs and user interfaces express certain world views and value systems and exclude others; under the primacy of efficiency and goal-orientation, naming and ordering are based on a certain view of knowledge and information, on economic, political and ideological priorities. Nevertheless, we proceed with templates as if they were completely neutral.

How can we deal with templates consciously, critically and productively? How do we make templates more inclusive – especially in the light of a feminist perspective and one that takes into account the inclusion of non-hegemonic perspectives? During the five-day workshop, the topic will be dealt with in groups and reflected upon in a publication. The publication process, which will be developed on the basis of the three areas of image, text and structural templates, will become a method for exploring, discussing and productively questioning the economic, political and ideological mechanisms behind templates, their graphic and functional characteristics.

Talk by Rosa Menkman
“As silly as it sounds, they were surprised she was a real person.” (Jeff Seideman on Lena Söderberg, “The First Lady of the Internet”)
For a while now storytelling and the practices of ventriloquy have made a return to the artists “toolbelt”. Contemporary technologies have enhanced the power of ghosts and their ability to haunt us: “the ghosts are making a comeback.” (Derrida in Ghost Dance, 1983). Now, with a 538 page Posthuman Glossary (Braidotti and Hlavajova, 2018) next to me, I try to navigate the realms of infomorphs and Xeno Zombies. It seems that the digital realm is full of dummies and that artists are eager to lend their voices. But should ghosts not stay shrouded in a sea of fog, do they need to be pulled out from the realms of static and canned laughter? Is it ok to lend a voice to a material that once was human?
In this talk I will take us through my collection of “ghosts” – bodies and voices from the internet, that have been cut off from their “humanity” – and ask: are these real people? And can I puppeteer these corpses?

Rosa Menkman’s work focuses on noise artifacts that result from accidents in both analogue and digital media (such as glitch and encoding and feedback artifacts). She believes that these artifacts can facilitate an important insight into the otherwise obscure alchemy of standardization via resolutions. The standardization of resolutions is a process that generally imposes efficiency, order and functionality on our technologies. It does not just involve the creation of protocols and solutions, but also entails the obfuscation of compromises and the black-boxing of alternative possibilities, which are as a result in danger of staying forever unseen or even forgotten. Through her research, which is both artistic and theoretical, Rosa Menkman hopes to uncover these anti-utopic, lost and unseen or simply “too good to be implemented” resolutions — to produce new ways to use and perceive through our technologies.

Talk by Anja Kaiser: “Bodies of discourse” 
The body is subject to multiple perspectives and constructions, no matter whether we encounter its representatives online or in real life. Which realities can be derived from them and which deviations arise? Anja Kaiser presents applied and independent projects that address the body as an ambivalent medium between power and powerlessness on the playing field of self-determined and externally determined utilisation. The visibility of the empowering grrrls-, POC- and LGBTQ-community determines her projects.

Anja Kaiser moves in an activist environment, in scenes of pop culture and searches for free space for social participation. In cooperation with the Institut für Zukunft, Conne Island and various feminist groups, she has worked on projects and their graphic translation. Within her own artistic work, she investigates the human body as an inevitable surface of projections of a biologically based determinism and illuminates approaches of deconstruction. In doing so she works on the transitions between graphics, design, art, music and forms of digital self-empowerment. With posters, animated digital images and towel editions that bear a radical aesthetic signature, she helps the subjects she works on to gain broad public recognition.

Exhibition Dates 11/04—08/06/19
Conversation with Andrea Tinnes and Anja Lutz (A—Z) 07/06/19, 19:00

The Library of Shapes, Texts and Structures is a visual research project and personal archive of graphic elements. The title is program; as the “library” encompasses sustained efforts of systematic collecting, note-taking, documenting, selecting, registering, archiving, manipulating, sorting and cataloguing of a body of diverse visual, textual and linguistic material.

The library’s “Shapes” section consists of two comprehensive typographic systems: The Affiche Collection and Allgemein Grotesk are both fonts that combine different letter forms in their character sets, and include numerous forms and symbols, from abstract-geometric to figurative-illustrative to organic-distorted. The section “Structures” contains a variety of analogue and digital textures, as well as photographic imagery of vernacular typography. These visual collections are complemented by the section “Texts”, which gathers excerpts, sorted by date, from newspapers, magazines, books and social media posts.

The exhibition at A—Z presents the current state of the “Library of Shapes, Texts and Structures” and a diverse series of posters that combine a selection of materials from the library with different motifs and colour combinations.

Andrea Tinnes is a German type designer, typographer and educator based in Berlin. She has a degree in Communication Design from the University of Applied Sciences Mainz and a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from the California Institute of the Arts. Her design practice is focused on client-based as well as self-initiated projects. Through her own label, typecuts (founded in 2004), she publishes as well as promotes all her type designs and typographic projects. She is Professor of Type and Typography at Burg Giebichenstein, and was responsible for the school’s new visual identity.
Her work has been featured in many national and international publications and exhibitions and has received several awards, including a “Certificate of Typographic Excellence” and “Red Dot”.