Kennen Sie schon … das „Arabic Design Archive“?

ADA is a non-prof­it ini­tia­tive that seeks to enable knowl­edge pro­duc­tion about Ara­bic design and its his­to­ry through a frame­work of col­lect­ing, dig­i­tiz­ing, and exhibit­ing. ADA aims to pro­vide an open and acces­si­ble plat­form for the pub­lic to counter the par­al­lel, inac­ces­si­ble, and non-exis­tent phys­i­cal archive of the sec­ond half of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

Our Story

The Ara­bic Design Archive and Design Repos­i­to­ry are found­ed by the Egypt­ian Design­er, prac­ti­tion­er his­to­ri­an, and researcher Moe Elhossieny. ADA was con­ceived in an attempt to address the lim­it­ed his­tor­i­cal resources around Arab design and acces­si­ble archives con­cerned with its his­to­ry. Elhossieny embarked on this project in ear­ly 2020, focus­ing on col­lect­ing Ara­bic book cov­er designs. Since then, the archive team has grown to include Arab design­ers and researchers from around the region, brought togeth­er through a shared sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty to make this archive pos­si­ble. The archive team is locat­ed between Cairo, Beirut, Jerusalem, Casablan­ca, and Van­cou­ver.

Since 2021, the team’s efforts and focus have expand­ed and slow­ly grown to encom­pass all graph­ic design-relat­ed mate­r­i­al.

Philosophical conception:

Our project adapts a rhi­zomat­ic con­cep­tion of knowl­edge pro­duc­tion, which describes the­o­ry and method­ol­o­gy that allows for mul­ti­ple, non-hier­ar­chi­cal entry and exit points in data rep­re­sen­ta­tion and inter­pre­ta­tion as opposed to a hier­ar­chi­cal con­cep­tion of knowl­edge pro­duc­tion. A stance to push for a decen­tral­ized knowl­edge pro­duc­tion process.

Methodological framework:

Our method­ol­o­gy is derived from our philo­soph­i­cal con­cep­tion, and uti­lizes what is known in his­tog­ra­phy as “A his­to­ry from below.“ This method­ol­o­gy invites the com­mu­ni­ty to engage with and be part of the project. This method point­ed our team to more mate­ri­als that weren’t high­light­ed. So far, the con­tri­bu­tions by the com­mu­ni­ty have been invalu­able.

https://arabicdesignarchive.com/about

Das Team ist auch auf Twit­ter, Face­book und Insta­gram vertreten.