By Dorothy Bourne
Published November 12, 2018
An event marking the beginning of what is expected to be an extraordinary and multifaceted three-week examination of contemporary graphic design and what it means for the world today has opened to the public.
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Touted as being the Middle East’s first Graphic Design Biennial, the event titled Ministry of Graphic Design, a ground-breaking but fictitious government department, has exhibitions, performances, panel discussions, retrospectives, speculations, installations and the downright unclassifiable on the schedule.
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I am now on site in what used to be the Bank of Sharjah, a modernist multi-storey building in the heart of the city that is set to be demolished soon after the show closes. Until then, the building has one last hurrah as the host of the Middle East’s first Graphic Design Biennial.
The design education platform Fikra and its collaborators have transformed the space into a vast and complex exhibition centre, spanning multiple ‘departments’ whose remits range from ‘Dematerialising Language’ to ‘Graphic Optimism’.
