Right-To-Left

Connecting visual cultures: 160 posters by more than 40 artists and designers of diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. Our largest exhibition project so far.

Client
Self initiated

Year
2012

Services
Visual Identity
Exhibition Design
Curating
Poster Series
Print Media
Publication
Signage
Web Design

Background
In cooperation with uqbar we organised the project Right-To-Left comprising an exhibition of contemporary graphic design from the Arab world and Iran, as well as lectures, discussions and workshops. The first exhibition took place at Studio 1, Bethanien, Berlin in November and December 2012 and featured more than 160 posters. We also invited 15 designers to create an exclusive poster just for the Right-To-Left show.

Curated by
Ben Wittner and Sascha Thoma

Coding by
Jens Buss

Paper Sponsoring
Fedrigoni

Participating Artists
Mohammed Reza Abdolali, Reza Abedini, l’Atlas, Tarek Atrissi, Nadine Chahine, Shahrzad Changalvaee, Homa Delvaray, Saeed Ensafi, Eps51, Vahid Erfanian, Abou Saeed Eskandari, File Club, Farhad Fozouni, Ganzeer, Diana Hawatmeh, Aria Kasaei, Sandra Kassenaar & Bart de Baets, Damoon Khanjanzadeh, Khatt Foundation, Kareem Lotfy, Mohamed Nabil Labib, Omid Nemalhabib, Maziyar Pahlevan, Maryam Palizgir, Peyman Pourhosein, Iman Raad, Florian Schick, Mouneer Al Shaarani, Medhi Saeedi, Kristyan Sarkis, Wissam Shawkat, Rambod Vala, Yanone, Pascal Zoghbi and others

Farhad Fozouni developed a bi-scriptural typographic installation for the show at studio 1.

The visual concept we developed for the Right-To-Left project is based on traditional patterns often found in the Arabic World and Iran. Simplifying the shapes to overlapping triangles transferred the keyvisual into modern times at the same time forming arrows pointing out various directions.

The poster was printed in 3 sizes (A1, A2 and A3). By combining the different posters on top of each other in various ways we received diverse individual patterns which were pasted all over Berlin.

Exclusive Poster Edition

Especially developed for the exhibition project, the Right-To-Left poster edition includes works by 15 artists and designers. According to the specifications sent by the project curators, the topic of the new posters had to be “Right-To-Left”, although this could be as freely interpreted as desired by each author. They dealt with the theme in the most different of ways: critical, reflective, ironic, funny, humorous, and political. Some of the new posters carry references to the current revolutions and upheavals in the Middle East; some interpret the topic in a literal sense, referring to the writing direction of the Arabic and Persian script and to the latest typographic bilingual experiments; others include inserts of poetry and calligraphy and speak a metaphorical language, full of references and hints to be discovered.

Posters by:
Aria Kasaei, Diana Hawatmeh, Eps51, Farhad Fozouni, File Club, Ganzeer, Homa Delvaray, Iman Raad, Kareem Lotfi, Maziyar Pahlevan, Mouneer El Sharaani, Peyman Pourhosein, Reza Abedini, Shahrzad Changalvaee, Wissam Shawkat