The A-Z of Hand-Lettering

This workshop explores the world of handlettering, starting with a conversation on the differences between writing, lettering and typography, followed by a series of drawing exercises designed to demonstrate the potential impact and versatility of using letters and words as expressive visual pieces.

Instructor:        

Ali Al Masri, Type & Graphic Designer,

Founder of Abjad Type Foundry, Jordan

Age group: Adults

Directed by: Abderrahmane Sissako

Mauritania, France

PG | Drama | Arabic, Bambara, French, English, Songhay, Tamashek | 97 minutes

Not far from Timbuktu, now ruled by the religious fundamentalists, Kidane lives peacefully in the dunes with his wife Satima, his daughter Toya, and Issan, their twelve-year-old shepherd. In town, the people are powerless, and they suffer from the regime of terror imposed by the Jihadists determined to control their faith. Music, laughter, cigarettes, even soccer have been banned. The women have become shadows but resist with dignity. Every day, the new improvised courts issue tragic and absurd sentences. Kidane and his family are being spared the chaos that prevails in Timbuktu. But their destiny changes when Kidane accidentally kills Amadou, the fisherman who slaughtered “GPS,” his beloved cow. He now has to face the new laws of the foreign occupants. Timbuktu is Mauritania's first entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award.

Directed by: Khalid Al Mahmood

UAE

PG | Drama | No Dialogue | 20 minutes

Two small boys live with their sick grandmother in the mountains of the UAE. Tending their vegetables and then selling produce on the road, they have to earn enough money to buy medicine for their grandmother. This poignant film depicts their lives and the world in which they live. Sabeel won the Second Prize in the Muhr Emirati Award at the Dubai International Film Festival in 2010.

Contemporary Practices From Across The Region

This industry-led talk investigates contemporary practices in visual communication by highlighting various examples from across the MENA region and discussing their social, cultural, artistic and commercial influences.

Speakers:

Ahmad Saqfalhait, Acting Head of Graphic Design Department at German University in Cairo, Egypt

Mo Saad, AIGA Middle East, Lebanon

Nuno Paiva, Head of Strategy, Slash, UAE

Salem Al-Qassimi, Founder and Principle of Fikra, Assistant Professor of Design at AUS, UAE

Tammam Yamout, Penguin Cube, UAE

Wael Marcos, Graphic & Type Designer, Lebanon

Practical Screen-Printing Techniques

Participants in this hands-on session are invited to create an original piece of work and then produce multiple editions of it using a range of screen-printing methods. With a focus on techniques – rather than producing a finished work, this collaborative workshop also explores aspects of color theory and the importance of considering print and production factors in any design process.

Instructor:        

Ahmad Makary & Mohamed Krayem, Printmakers, The Workshop Dxb, UAE

Age group: Adults

Directed by: Karzan Kader

Iraq

PG | Comedy, Drama | Kurdish, Arabic | 92 minutes

Iraq in the early 1990 was a devastating land to survive in. When we think of Iraq, the first thing that tends to pop into our minds is the war and Saddam Hussein. But there is another side too - it is perhaps the most notorious region in the world and it goes by the name Kurdistan. Welcome to Bekas. This is a story about Zana and Dana; two orphaned brothers rely on their street smarts and each other to survive. They devise a plan to move to America and live with Superman after glimpsing a movie through a hole in a wall.

Directed by: Khadija Fatma Lemkecher

Tunisia

PG-13 | Drama | Arabic | 20 minutes

Fearing they will be subjected to celibacy, Aisha, Tibr and Bouka decide to participate in a mythical ceremony in one of the city's cemeteries.

The Poster Design Experiment

Participants in this workshop watch a short film, discuss its content and meaning, and then construct an original poster combining typography and visual imagery inspired by the film’s themes, messages and characters.

Instructor:        

Hadeyeh Badri & Riem Hassan, Designers,

Mobius Design Studio, UAE

Age group: Adults

Hundred Best Arabic Posters

Hundred Best Arabic Posters celebrates the diversity of visual cultures by collecting and choosing the best posters from across the Arab world, spreading knowledge about Graphic Design in the region through exhibitions and specialized talks and workshops. 

Hundred Best Arabic Posters is a yearly competition from the region for the region, and the rest of the world. Any designer from the region can participate in the competition; the poster should meet the following conditions: it must be in Arabic, and must have been published previously.

The best hundred posters are selected to be exhibited and published thanks to the professional judgement of an esteemed jury. The winning posters are rewarded with a traveling exhibition that stops in several countries within the Arab world. The first stop was in Amman, where the Hundred Best Arabic Posters were exhibited to the public as part of Amman Design Week activities that took place September, 2016. The second stop will be at Warehouse421 in Abu Dhabi.

The Influence of Visual & Popular Culture in Graphic Design

This talk focuses on the symbiotic relationship between visual and popular culture and design by analyzing iconic street art, movie posters, signage and advertising, and exploring how they influenced a shift towards a more graphic style of visual communication, both as a commercial tool and a valid form of artistic expression.

Speakers:

Goffredo Puccetti, Assistant Professor of Practice of Visual Arts, NYU Abu Dhabi, UAE

Nancy Skolos, Dean of Architecture and Design, Rhodes Island School of Design, USA

Rana Salam, Art Director/Consultant on Middle Eastern popular culture

Tarek Atrissi, Founder, Tarek Atrissi Design, Spain

Directed by: Muayad Alayan

Palestine

PG | Adventure, Comedy | Arabic, English, Hebrew | 97 minutes

Mousa gets into the trouble of his life when he steals the wrong car. What he thought was an Israeli car and an easy way to make money in his impoverished Palestinian refugee camp, turns out to be a load of misfortune when he discovers a kidnapped Israeli soldier in the trunk. Mousa's hopes of paying the bribe that will guarantee him an exit visa out of the country and away from his wrecked love affair dissipate as he finds himself on the run from Palestinian militias and the Israeli intelligence.

Directed by: Omar El Zohairy

Egypt

PG | Comedy, Drama | Arabic | 18 minutes

In a contemporary world subjugated by materialism, filled with perpetual fear and unending hardships, the definition of our humanity is blurred, residing in a grey area where it becomes difficult to differentiate between the life of an object and that of a human being. I am always struggling to overcome this constant state of fear which controls me. Fear in all its forms: fear of the unknown, fear of the future (and the past), fear of materialism, of emotions... Fear, that feeling which comes over you like a tornado, destroying all other things in its way. This is why I tried to make a film about that emotion only, devoid as much as possible of any other, a film only about fear.

Revisiting Visual Communication

This workshop explores the creative practice of visual communication through the use of simplified drawings, symbols and design. Participants learn about aspects of creative thinking, idea generation, the application of traditional and unconventional techniques, and the use of various media, to effectively communicate ideas without text.

Instructor:        

David Habchy, Visual Artist & Co-Founder,Studio Kawakeb / Waraq Associassion, Lebanon

Age group: Adults

Directed by: Mahmoud Sabbagh

KSA

PG | Comedy, Romance, Drama | Arabic, English | 88 min

If you were to ask a group of film experts which country is currently the least appropriate setting for a hilarious, truly wacky romantic comedy, the chances are that Saudi Arabia would come out on top. But their guesses would be wrong, as Barakah Yoqabil Barakah provides more than enough evidence to the contrary. He is a municipal civil servant from Jeddah, whose origins are humble to say the least, while she is a wild beauty, the adopted daughter of a rich couple, whose marriage has suffered due to their lack of biological children. He is also an amateur actor in a theatre company rehearsing a production of "Hamlet", while she functions as a crowd puller for her stylish adoptive mother’s boutique and runs her own boisterous, widely seen vlog. Fate brings them together – in an environment hostile to dating of any kind. But the two of them show breathtaking ingenuity to circumvent the system of tradition, etiquette and religious police – with the crucial help of a quirky midwife and a pink push up bra. Barakah Yoqabil Barakah is a film for anyone who has always wanted to know just what else is going on in Saudi Arabia.

Directed by: Ely Dagher

Lebanon, Qatar

PG | Animation | Arabic | 15 min

Set between Beirut’s post-war climate of recovery in the 90’s and today’s general sense of crumbling this is Omar’s story. Growing up in Beirut’s suburbs meant that Omar spent his entire teenage years living on the outskirts, having never visited parts of the segregated city or even crossed its borders.

His daily life is dominated by the mundane, his parents’ financial problems, and a certain lack of motivation; his only escape being the time he spends gazing at the city from his school’s rooftop.

Until, On a cold winter day, Omar unexpectedly witnesses something strange and beautiful. A sort of intense beaming light, shining through the greyness of the city’s landscape that lures him to venture into the depth of the city. This giant discovery leads him to explore and immerse himself in a world he never knew existed. A world that is so close yet so isolated from his reality that Omar finds himself struggling to keep his attachments, his sense of home…

 A Human History of Visual Communication

This lecture tracks the evolution of visual communication throughout history, from cave painting to the digital revolution, including the advent of graphic design and the development of semiotics, writing and printing, as transformational methods for communicating information.

Speaker:  

Prof. Bernard Stein, Chair of Visual Communication, University of Kassel, Germany

Learning to Value Constructive Critique

As part of the Community & Critique: SEAF 2015/16 Cohort 3 Show, Warehouse421 hosts a moderated panel discussion featuring artists from the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship (SEAF), followed by an open critique of their work. Fellows discuss their projects and answer questions from the public. The session focuses on the value of critique and how constructive language can become an integral tool in the art making process.

Speakers:

Asma Al Ahmed, SEAF Alumni

Cham Enbashi, SEAF Alumni

Nasser Al Zayani, SEAF Alumni

Tima Ouzden, SEAF Alumni

Zahra Jewanjee, SEAF Alumni

Moderated by:

Mahnaz Fancy, art critic and former Editor of Canvas and former Executive Director of ArteEast

Cohort 3

This show is the culmination of the yearlong Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship program (SEAF). Each year the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, in partnership with the Rhode Island School of Design, welcomes a group of emerging artists from across the UAE into this unique educational program.

The SEAF program consists of the artistic development process, the critique process, the immersive studio practice, and an online community. Through these pillars, Fellows can develop their artistic skills, establish a greater understanding of their work, and strengthen their ability to articulate their ideas. 

Community and critique go hand in hand, where reflection and analysis support the advancement of content and form. These sixteen artists have worked in a supportive studio-based community, enriched by knowledge exchange and critical dialogues. 

Bringing their works into Warehouse421 means stepping outside the intimacy of the SEAF studios, providing them with an opportunity to share their works with the community. The critique asks participants to articulate their works formally and conceptually, contributing to the complexity and richness of processes that lead to sustained artistic practice.

Mold-making and Casting 

Taking inspiration from Xavier Mascaró’s installations exhibited in Departure at Warehouse421, participants can experiment with found objects to create molds and use casting techniques, resulting in organic looking and unexpected small-scale sculptural pieces.

Workshop led by: Kyle Hittmeier

Artist. Studio Manager, The Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship (SEAF)

Age Group: Families (suitable for children 10 and above)

In collaboration with SEAF

Relief Printing 

Using the sketches and drawings exhibited in Departure at Warehouse421 as a starting point, participants can extract elements from the sketches, and create reduced black and white drawings and textures. The drawings are then transferred on a linoleum sheet, to be carved out and inked, creating multiple raised prints on different surfaces.

Workshop led by: Salama Nasib

Artist. Alumni, The Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship (SEAF)

Age Group: Adults

In collaboration with SEAF

Model Making 

This workshop revolves around building a skeletal form of a boat, by using materials that imitate Xavier Mascaró’s materials, to guide and not limit children, to create their own structure. The workshop starts with an introduction, and then moves to sketching ideas and choosing the material to work with, to form the structure of the boat and build on it, in order to achieve a standing finished piece.

Workshop led by: Ahmed Mohamed

Artist. Fellow, The Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship (SEAF)

Age Group: Families (suitable for children 7 and above)

In collaboration with SEAF

Reinterpreting Pearling Stories

Visitors can relive the life of an Emirati pearling family that dealt with the consequences of departure, travel and returning home, through a compelling theatrical and storytelling production.

In collaboration with Rooftop Rhythms

 **Photo courtesy of the National Archives**

Material Casting 

Observing the behavior of materials found in the UAE’s natural environment and how their transformative qualities can be adapted into new forms, participants can engage in one of the mold-making and casting processes, which is turning grains of sand into 3-dimensional surfaces.

Workshop led by: Talin Hazbar

Designer. Alumni, The Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship (SEAF)

Age Group: Adults

In collaboration with SEAF

A Poetic Dedication to the Departure Exhibition

Vistors can delve in to the UAE's rich maritime history of diving, pearling and trade with some of the country's most prominent contemporary poets, as they perform English and Arabic pieces that cover notions of departure, exploration, and more.

 In collaboration with Rooftop Rhythms

 **Photo courtesy of the National Archives**

Xavier Mascaro

As part of the program that surround Xavier Mascaro exhibition Departure, this conversation with the artist highlights the artworks on show Warehouse421. It also explores his processes and techniques and discusses the global context of the work, as well as its relation to Abu Dhabi.

Talk moderated by:

Mahnaz Fancy

Editor of Canvas Magazine

This exhibition invites visitors to experience passage, adjustability and mobility through the woks of Spanish artist Xavier Mascaro (b. 1965, Paris). Visitors can observe possibilities and meanings through the 18-meter iron ship shown at the entrance of Warehouse421, which is suitably located in Mina Zayed, inciting parallel dialogues between the artworks and the surrounding environment. Inside the exhibition, the 26 unique boats and documentation, along with the poems of reminiscence, survey thoughts, processes and experimentations that investigate notions of departure.

Mascaro employes a thematic that can be universal and personal. He transports visitors from ancient mythology and rampant totalities, to an icon that speaks to the historical specifics of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) community with its versatility. These relations manifest in traditional poems and songs that were instruments to convey what traveling really meant for the community, from longing to reuniting, and the essential emotions that bonded people together, and with the sea.

The UAE's geographical relation with the sea helped in creating strong trading, fishing and pearling industries that supported the community for years. Not only that, but it was also one that shaped the urban life and facilitated building the coastal cities that are witnessed today.

What constitutes an archive? Why build and maintain an archive? How are archives built and used? Join an intriguing discussion among representatives of the leading archives in the UAE to explore the significance and various approaches to archiving in the Emirates. 

Discussants:
Karen Davies, Crown Prince Court, Abu Dhabi
Abdallah Al Bastaki, National Archive 
Dr. Shamoon Zamir, Akkasah Center for Photography, NYU Abu Dhabi
Dr. Michele Bambling, Lest We Forget

Participants are led through a step-by-step process of printing on textiles by extracting visual elements found in photos of journeys through the ocean, fishing and surfing, drawing various patterns which are transferred into stencils used to transfer impressions on fabric.

Instructor: Khalid Mezaina, Artist
Alumni, the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging
Artists Fellowship (SEAF)

In collaboration with SEAF

Directed by Jan-Willem van Ewijk
Morocco, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium | PG 15 | Drama, Adventure | 94 minutes

A Moroccan fisherman sets off on an epic journey towards Europe on his wind surfboard. But the pursuit of dreams does not come without sacrifice.

Directed by Sherif Elbendary
Egypt, Germany | PG13 | Comedy | 32 minutes

Two paths cross on a hot, dry, day in Cairo. A desperate cancer patient meets a bride, who wants to wear her wedding gown and prepare for a photograph with her groom. A day unlike any other.

Observing the behavior of materials found in the UAE’s natural environment and how their transformative qualities can be adapted into new forms, participants will be engaged in a process of mold-making and casting, such as turning grains of sand into 3-dimensional surfaces.

Instructor: 
Talin Hazbar, Designer 
Alumni, the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship

In collaboration with SEAF

Directed by Naji Abu Nawar
Jordan, UAE, UK, Qatar | PG | Drama, Adventure | 100 minutes

In the Ottoman province of Hijaz during World War I, a young Bedouin boy experiences a greatly hastened coming of age as he embarks on a perilous desert journey to guide a British officer to his secret destination.

Directed by Nayla Al Khaja
UAE | PG 15 | Drama | 14 minutes

Sarah moves to Dubai to make a fresh start, leaving behind a tragedy that has scarred her for life. Her interactions with an elderly neighbor force her out of isolation, and she slowly confronts the torment of her past. Little by little, she opens her heart until one careless act threatens to destroy the bond between these two unlikely acquaintances.

Abu Dhabi, a small coastal town just fifty years ago, has emerged as a leading global city with remarkable speed.  This phenomenal development is the topic of an insightful conversation among citizens and long-time residences who photographed and remember the transformation.  Join us for an evening dedicated to considering Abu Dhabi, then and now. 

Discussants:
Dr. Frauke Heard-Bay, Historian
Nick, Cochrane-Dyet, British Petroleum
Dr. Aisha Bilkhair Abdulla, National Archives
Jack Burlot, Photographer

Using photocopies of photographs (printed on a laser printer), this workshop will introduce participants to acrylic transfer techniques. Using fluid acrylic mediums they will experiment with direct “wet” and “dry” image transfer techniques.
 
Participants are encourages to bring several black and white photocopies of their photographs, that have been printed on a laser printer and not on an inkjet printer. The transfer technique will not work on photocopies made on an inkjet printer.
 
Instructor: Anne Krinsky, Artist

In Collaboration with Lest We Forget

Directed by Hala Lotfy
Egypt | PG | Drama | 87 minutes

Those who have fully enjoyed their bodies cannot be submissive. And those who never have? Can they survive the slavery of solitude and impotent acceptance of what they can't change or embrace? This is the everyday story of two women taking care of their sick man.

Directed by Mohammad Shawky Hassan
Egypt | PG | Experimental | 24 minutes

Domestic scenes filmed in Cairo and New York unfold to a continuous stream of talk shows and onscreen text, at times transcribing the exchanges and at others bringing the viewer into the director’s interior world. The 24-hour news cycle and social media networks supersede national borders, revealing both an existential fatigue in light of world affairs and guarded playfulness at having—through the cinematic process—carved out time shielded from them. 

Rooted in the vision to support emerging artists in the UAE, this panel discussion explores the theories, practices, and pedagogy around the importance of creating an environment that nurtures and develops artists in the UAE, while honoring an artist’s natural tendency to seek out community.

Discussants:
Pradeep Sharma, Rhode Island School of Design
Anais Missakian, Rhode Island School of Design
Jill Hoyle, Tashkeel
Maisa Al Qassimi, Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority

Moderated by: Myrna Ayad, Journalist

Participants will be introduced to various mixed-media and collage techniques including painting, printing and assembling found objects, materials and images to create layered and expressive compositions interpreting the UAE’s desert landscape.

Instructors: 
Amanda Nedham, Artist
Alanoud Al Obaidly, Artist 
Alumni, the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship

In collaboration with SEAF

Set in a small seaside neighborhood in the United Arab Emirates, Sea Shadow follows teenagers Mansoor and Kaltham as they struggle with tradition and convention in their journey towards adulthood. Bound by family and deeply-rooted values, the pair must find the courage to forge their own paths.

Directed by Basil Khalil
Palestine, France, Germany | PG | Drama, Comedy | 15 minutes

Nuns of the 'Sisters of Mercy convent' in the middle of the West Bank wilderness have their daily routine of silence and prayer disrupted when a family of religious Jewish settlers crash their car into the convent’s wall.