IFAO

In collaboration with the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology (Ifao), Sporadic Schooling presents Parallels, a week-long program consisting of 4 public lectures focused on different facets of design history, and a hands-on 5-day typography and letterpress printing workshop.

LECTURES

March 28 8–9:30 pm + March 30 8–9:30 pm

March 28 8–9:30 pm

Mahmoud El Hossieny is a Cairo-based designer, researcher, and writer. He graduated from Central Saint Martins, London, UK, with an MA degree in Graphic Communication Design in 2018. In recent years his interest has shifted towards a more research-oriented and investigative practice. In 2020, he established the research and publishing platform the Design Repository, through which he initiated the Arabic Design Archive project. This project aims to preserve and document Arabic Graphic Design history with a current collection of more than 8 thousand graphic materials. He also started publishing and writing about the history of Arab design through the platform.

Displayed for Sale: Egyptian Magazine Advertisements Archive

This Bachelor's thesis explores, documents and analyses the history of printed advertisements in Egypt during the period between the 1930s-1970s, highlighting how advertisements had the ability to reveal compelling narratives about society and culture, providing a unique lens through which to understand historical events of these four decades.

Farida Ashraf is currently a senior design student at the German University in Cairo. She developed her passion for archives during her undergraduate studies.

Due to the collaborative nature of this project, the conversations will be in English. Arabic subtitled will be added to the recordings at a later date.

The lectures will be followed by a conversation with the audience.

March 30 8–9:30 pm

Archiving Graphic Design – Influencing narratives yesterday and today

Bettina Richter presents the poster collection of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, one of the most comprehensive archives of its kind. She talks about the history of the collection, reports on the challenges of curating an international collection covering a plethora of subject areas and the changing criteria of collecting. She provides an insight into archiving and documenting practices and shares examples of how the contents of the collection are communicated in exhibitions and complementary publications.

Bettina Richter, born in 1964, is an Art Historian who studied in Heidelberg, Paris, and Zurich. From 1997 to 2006, Ms. Richter served as a research associate of the Poster Collection at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich, and since 2006, she has worked as its curator. Bettina has curated a number of poster exhibitions, including "The Magic of Things – Product Posters" (2012), "Japanese Poster Artists – Cherry Blossom and Asceticism" (2014), "Take a Holiday – Tourism Posters from Switzerland" (2017), "Protest! Resistance Posters" (2018), "Visual Poetry – Contemporary Posters from Iran" (2023), and "Talking Bodies – Body Images in the Poster" (2023). Additionally, Bettina lectures at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste and works as a freelance writer. She is the editor of the publication series "Poster Collection" and has published articles and essays on art history, literature, and extensively on the subject of posters.

Lost and Found: The Global Trek of Iconic Film Posters

Embark on a visual journey through time and across borders. This talk unveils the fascinating tales behind vintage Egyptian film posters – from their creation to their final place in the City Lights Posters' collection. Discover the artists, the hidden stories of their travels, and the hands they've passed through, all while marveling at the actual posters and guided by maps and visuals. This isn't just history; it's an adventure into the heart of cinema's visual legacy.

Mohamad Diab is the founder City Lights Posters, an enterprise specializing in vintage film posters from Egypt and the Arab world. City Lights is dedicated to the preservation, study, and display of culturally and artistically significant film materials dating from the 1930s to today. Many of the posters and memorabilia of the “golden age” of Egyptian cinema are lost and can never be recovered. The recent and ongoing rediscovery of vintage posters, playbills, and theater displays has opened new opportunities to celebrate the glory days of regional cinema. City Lights Posters is dedicated to sharing with the world the gorgeous and evocative Egyptian film posters of this dazzling and romantic era.

Due to the collaborative nature of this project, the conversations will be in English. Arabic subtitled will be added to the recordings at a later date.

The lectures will be followed by a conversation with the audience.

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WORKSHOP

Typography and Letterpress printing workshop with Dafi Kühne

In this intensive 5 day workshop, participants learn to experiment with progressive typography in combination with analog tools. During this workshop, all exercises will be realized with letterpress printing presses and physical type. Through this very slow but accurate process the participants will learn to put emphasis on concept and micro typography while exploring new approaches with old technology.

Dafi Kühne is a Swiss designer and letterpress printer. In his studio babyinktwice.ch he embraces the labor involved in the process of creating a poster, from initial idea to finished product. Fusing modern means with the century-old tradition of letterpress, he forms a new vocabulary for how to communicate through type and form in a truly contemporary way. His mostly typographic posters have been presented in exhibitions in Zurich, London, New York and been published in international poster, graphic design and typography books and magazines. Kühne also gave talks and taught university workshops in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom and the USA. In fall 2016, his first monograph «True Print» has been published by Lars Müller Publishers, Zürich.

To register, send a short motivation paragraph of a maximum 200 words to dafi@babyinktwice.ch.

This programed is generously supported by Pro Helvetia Cairo.