Exhibitions: Fraternal Visuals & Visual Synonyms by Antoine Abi Aad
Within the scope of the 39th International Sarajevo Winter Festival, International University of Sarajevo (IUS) will host a Lebanese artist and designer Antoine Abd Aad.
FRATERNAL VISUALS
Gallery Preporod
17.02.2023
18 p.m.
The natural triangular relation between the Arab world, the Arab language and Islam is obvious to the whole world. Praying in Arabic is a must in Islam. What surprises many people, outside the Arab world is that, there are Christians also praying in Arabic, and they are in millions, varying in numbers around the Arab countries. The prayers, Muslim and Christian, have a lot in common, the two religions being monotheistic and Abrahamic.
Fraternal Visuals is a lettering transcription of Arabic prayers, Muslim and Christian, which are similar in meaning and in sound. Gathered in one piece, these prayers point at the unity between the two religions, the common roots, and the similar veneration and obedience to the same God.
VISUAL SYNONYMS
IUS Art Gallery
20.02.2013.
12 p.m.
The cultural heritage of the Middle East is a treasure that has amazed and inspired artists and designers for centuries, and the future of lettering in this region resides within its rich calligraphic inheritance. Visual Synonyms started as a course at the Lebanese University under the guidance of Professors Antoine Abi Aad and Rana Abou Rjeily. Students studied compositions, forms, rhythms, contrasts, and the rules of harmony existing in traditional Arabic calligraphy, which they used as a springboard to design compositions with modern letters inspired by calligraphic masterpieces, and so create their own visual synonyms. Lebanon, inherent in its tradition as a melting pot where young women and men from different social backgrounds come together, regardless of wealth, belief, religion, region, and interest, is proud to show the world the exquisite beauty of the Arabic script. As teachers and citizens, we see it as our duty to promote this type of Arabic art to counter the negativity in which it is sadly portrayed by segments of the global media. But moreover, to ultimately benefit from its long established history, and take this rich artistic practice forward to new generations.
Antoine Abi Aad (Ph.D. and MA University of Tsukuba in Japan, DES Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts in Lebanon) is an educator, visual communicator, and researcher. He is also a frequent guest lecturer and has given talks and workshops at numerous institutions, including the Universidade de Brasilia (Brazil), International Design School (Jakarta), Institute of Business and Design (Moscow), Hong Kong Design Institute, IIT Bombay, Greenside Design Center College of Design (Johannesburg), Nara University of Education (Japan), Boston University and Yale University (New Haven).
Having participated in 56 exhibitions (31 cities, 19 countries), lectured in 46 universities (21 countries) and taught 2057 students since 2004, Antoine’s true dedicating is for research and experimentations. His passion is for letters: typography, calligraphy and handwriting. The different scripts he writes (Arabic, Latin and Japanese) led him to have special interests in the directions of writing, leftward, rightward, and downward, and how these directions affect visual communication and advertising, or even more, motion graphics and animation.
Antoine was the Chairperson of Typoday Amman 2020, Head of Department of Graphic Design and Visual Communication at the Lebanese University, and he also served as a vice-president of i-cod (formerly Icograda) from 2015 to 2017.
