Migrating Crafts #3: A Cosmological Practice
Turn writing into your own visual language
Build your own writing tool with graphic designer Omid Nemalhabib and experiment with Persian calligraphy, repetition and abstract forms. In this third workshop in the Migrating Crafts series, discover what happens when letters break free from their familiar forms and become lines, rhythm and images.
Workshop: build your own writing tool
What happens when writing is no longer about readable words? You’ll start by making your own writing tool from everyday materials such as wood, cardboard, pens, elastic bands or a found object. You’ll then experiment with lines and repetition, discovering how letters can gradually turn into shapes and patterns.
Omid takes inspiration from Siyahmashq, a Persian calligraphic tradition in which words and lines are repeatedly written over one another. Using this technique as a starting point, you’ll develop your own letter, word or short text, creating a personal visual language step by step. No previous experience with calligraphy or design is needed.
Programme
10:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.: Introduction and presentation by Omid Nemalhabib
11:00 a.m. 12:30 p.m.: Workshop
12:30 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.: Bringing the work together, sharing and finishing
About Omid Nemalhabib
Omid Nemalhabib is a graphic designer working at the intersection of typography, visual language and different writing systems. His work combines analogue techniques with digital experimentation. He is co-founder of Studio Melli, an independent design studio that started in Tehran and is now based in The Hague.
Photo: Omid Nemalhabib
About Migrating Crafts
Across three standalone workshops, Yingda Dong, Chiara Caselli and Omid Nemalhabib give traditional crafts a new form.
Wanwai Shum and Augustina Lavickaitė are designers and the initiators of Migrating Crafts. Through the project, they explore how crafts travel with people and change through new places, cultures and techniques. For this workshop series, they bring together makers from different backgrounds and craft disciplines at Fenix.
During this first workshop in the Migrating Crafts series, you’ll experiment with brushstrokes, movement, emoji and symbols. Together with illustrator and researcher Yingda Dong, you’ll discover how an age-old form of writing is evolving.
Work with clay, sand and colour pigments to create your own plate, bowl or small ceramic object. In this second workshop in the Migrating Crafts series, ceramic artist Chiara Caselli shows how materials, techniques and memories travel with people.