Laboratory

The collective plans to develop a corpus of texts and a creative picture book, which will be based on a critical approach to the existing visual culture within Lebanese society. In order to question dominant communication forms and come up with new ones, the members want to establish a reflection group that stands separate from existing academic groups. The ‘laboratory’ creates a collective process that crafts useful tools to research, experiment, and produce alternative communication contents in printed and digital form. These tools provide a critical reflection on social, political and cultural questions that strive to impact their surrounding environment. The project will bring together a long-term interdisciplinary team that initiates a new path for graphic design as a movement for experimental communication. The collective also aims to host a series of theoretical and practical workshops to question dominant forms of visual creation. The products created during these workshops will be available to the wider public as well as to specialists in the field.

Based in Beirut, graphic designer and illustrator Jana Traboulsi’s office is a collaborative space for graphic design and illustration work focused on social, political and cultural matters. The collective gathers a network of visual artists, alongside individuals from various fields (publishers, urban planners, historians, architects, musicians, etc.). Together they carry out multidisciplinary projects, primarily in Arabic. Jana Traboulsi’s vision is to set up a space for collective thinking on the social and political role of visual practices in the Arab world, for committed and forward-thinking ‘avant-gardiste’ graphic production.