BABYLON
PRINTS AND VARIABLE FONT
COMMISSIONED BY
THE SKIRBALL CULTURAL
CENTER, LA
THEME: HISTORY;
COMMUNITY; HERITAGE
Re-imagining a Middle Eastern visual language that fuses Jewish, Muslim and ancient Babylonian elements into a groundbreaking contemporary look→
Visual communication in Israel, my native ground, draws constant inspiration from the modernist and postmodernist European imagery and remains undistinguished → A tremendous potential is yet to be defined within Semitic cultures and geographically near space → Can a new Israeli design language be formulated, based on Middle East symbols? This question led me to create a series of projects, ranging from print to digital, from type to images →
In "Babylon" I have re-imagined a Middle Eastern visual language that fuses Jewish, Muslim and ancient Babylonian elements into a groundbreaking contemporary look → By nurturing new visual contexts, leaning on Hebrew contexts and visual awareness of the eastern historical field, I ask to establish an innovative dialogue by breaking cultural, lingual, territorial and political boundaries →
The work is based on historic visual treasures of the Middle East and it’s overlapping cultures → The goal was to restore, update, rephrase and create this graphic and typographic imagery while borrowing from rich Jewish-Muslim artistic territories →
In a poster entitled "Mediterranean Goodbye", I aimed to create a modern arabesque, inspired by the late British-Iraqi architect, artist and designer Zaha Hadid’s work → The use of Ezer Kadim typeface, interlaced with itself, demonstrates an organic expression of flexibility and flow → The Middle Eastern search continues, looking for a visual message which is both traditional and contemporary → The poster doubles as a homage to the Israeli play writer Hanoch Levin, using fragments of dialogues from his play → The lyrics, talking about a woman leaving Israel for London, are connected and resemble flight routes →
Another poster, "Ode to the Middle East", where the movable dialogue simulates a mysterious dance between two figures, is inspired by ancient Egyptian recognized images → To support the concept, I chose to use a poem by Joseph Ozer, discussing boundaries established by the west → The text is set in the Yemenite styled Ezer Kadim typeface, and the forms relate to protective incantation bowls from Syria → Every aspect of the poster calls for a new alternative, which is appealing and intriguing → The poster, revolving around repetition is an endless, rounded discussion thoughtfully crafted, between the rich sources of inspirations from the Middle East → The poster was displayed in the ‘Overview’ exhibition at the Design Museum Holon, Israel →
"On the way to Babylon" is an animated poster with a printed version reacting to an invented story of space travel in which all the planets are the known earth → An alternative reality in a tapestry layout, where Middle Eastern awareness blurs concepts of center and margins, creating a parallel existence: A Middle Eastern, non-European space of cultural hubs rather than a nation-based centers → In this futuristic narrative, multiple earths are contributing to the existence of dialogue through repetition → I choose to gaze out from my window and fly to Babylon, where history leans towards the multicultural and Spatial rather than hierarchical →
Ezer Kadim typeface is the outcome of an artistic dialogue between me and the great century Yemenite Jewish writer and scholar, Saadia al-Adani → His exquisite handwriting from 1222 was taken as a starting point to the typeface → Design features include emphasizing the horizontal strokes, rounded arches, and extended letter width → The skeletal letterforms, typical of the style were preserved, such as the unique horizontal letter Aleph.
