- CollegeCentral Saint Martins
- CourseMA Graphic Communication Design
- Graduation year2023
This project questions the notions of language, cultural identity, writing and the materiality of language in relation to Africa and the diaspora. It focuses on the call for Sankofa (learning from the past) as a new way to design and find inspiration outside of the Western canon, as well as re-finding a ‘sort of’ cultural identity through language and its materiality, which has been torn off by slavery, colonialism and Neo-colonialism.
This work is to be understood in a Pan-African context, where it is important to re-link with our identities and what it means to be Afro-descant and African, which ever your field of action is. The project engages with these question through the print form and ‘experimental publishing’. It looks at the form of the book as a whole, working together to communicate a concept, and undertaking typography and the written word in the form of materiality of language, where sometimes, the ‘words’ have as much -if not more- to say through their visibility than their legibility.
This project is about understanding that other cultures have their own ways, and differing from the Western man and its ideologies is not a sign of less value, but a different value.
Final work
Conversation on language and cultural identity
How to use written language and experimental publishing as tools to explore the link between language and cultural identity on the African continent and in the diaspora?
This zine explores the relationship between language and cultural identity through interviews. Here, the focus is on the African continent and the diaspora. Bilingual depending on where the person interviewed was from (French-speaking or English-speaking country in Africa), each interview is a conversation about experiences with language during their education on the continent. The experiences vary but somehow, always come together in a shared feeling of ‘loss’, the loss of appreciation for one’s mother tongue. I asked questions about education, as it is where, from 6 to 18 years old, one is going to spend most of their time. I found it interesting that Africa might be one of the only places where school is not taught in the language native to the land.
It is important to notice that some languages are spoken in different countries. I cannot help but wonder what it would have been like if the Scramble for Africa never happened, and countries were designed in relation to languages instead of territories and resources to exploit.
In design and format, this zine explores experimental publishing and the materiality of language to communicate these ideas of change, loss, and disruption, but also the overlapping of story and shared experiences.
Beyond the western canon: exploring language, identity, and writing in Africa and the diaspora
« How to rethink our understanding of the written language and its uses, including typography and layout systems, using indigenous African design systems? »
With this enquiry, I have tased myself with not using any reference, influence, or inspiration from the Western canons of design for the second part of the project ‘Beyond the western canon’. The first half of this overall project ‘Conversation on language and cultural identity’ was the premise of this research. These conversations fed the development of this project and the deeper research in theses relationship between language, cultural identity and the written word. This is where the significance of it for the field lies.
The relevance of the enquiry explored through this work, in relation to graphic design, is, I would say -and I hope that everyone sees it this way- quite obvious. We are in a process of re-discovery. Re-discovering what is graphic design (through typography, layout, typesettings, and the notions of writing and language), re-discovery of new resources, new inspirations, new processes, new ways of doing. I use the word ‘discovering’, however, it might not be the right one. (Re-) defining might be more appropriate. It is not a discovery, or a *re-discovery, in the sense that these resources have always existed.
However, since the current design education system primarily teaches us traditional Western definitions of graphic design, which have framed our positions - these resources have generally been overlooked. This publication offers the understanding that we need to open our field, open our minds and try to break free from the Western canon. It also leans on the importance of research, looking within your culture and your identity to create. I do think that this helps make work that is more meaningful as you, yourself, feel also more connected to the work you’re producing, as the research you do will also you grow as an individual and fuel this quest for identity that I think we are all a part of. It is about re-affirming your identity, your culture, and yourself - especially when it is a culture that has been devaluated. Moreover, the significance of this work also lies in its process, the ‘unseen’, the ‘illegible’, the ‘unwritten’ (following a Western definition of writing). As for this work is a constant back and forth between researches, archives, writings (in all its forms); exploring arts and history, in order to create what it is today. It is exploring how to work with references and inspirations to create something new rather than looking at the surface of things (such as their visual aspect). It is about absorbing, understanding, digesting the concepts and elevated thinking behind them.
Everything is designed for a reason and serves a purpose.
List of the essays used as the content of the publication (in order):
1. French and British Colonial Language Policies: A Comparative view of their impact on African Literature, Friedric Michelman, Research in African Literatures, Winter, 1995, Vol. 26 No.4, Indiana University Press
2. Pan-Africanism and the Language question: Re-reading African Cultural and intellectual History, Kenneth Inyani Simala, 2010
3. The language of African Literature, Ngugi wa Thing’o, 1986 : In The Language, Ethnicity and Race Reader, edited by Roxy Harris and Ben Rampton
4. Système du monde et écriture en Afrique Noire, Jean-Paul Lebeuf, Présence Africaine, Nouvelle Série No.53, pp. 129-135
5. Inscribing meaning,: ways of knowing, Mary Nooter Roberts, Elizabeth Harney, Allyson Purpura and Chritisne Mullen Kreamer
6. African Writing, Text and the Arts: Concepts and definitions, Simon Battestini
7. Nontsikelelo Mutiti on Interrogating the Eurocentric Design Canon, Ksenya Samarskaya, 2019, Eye on design
8. Past + Present = Future? The Potential Role of Historical visual Material and Contemporary Practice in De-Colonising Visual Communication Design Courses, Piers Carey, Durban University of Technology, 2017
9. Exposer la mémoire des symboles, du corps, des images : Le possible vocabulaire des artistes afrodescendant.e.s, Fabienne Bideau,extract from Europa Oxala
10. Europa Oxala - un cadeau pour le futur, extract from from Europa Oxala, Margarida Calafate Ribeiro
Research and process
Design decisions for the work on 'Conversations on language and cultural identity'
It is important to understand that is this project, as well as in my practice in general, every aspects of the layout and the book design work together to communicate different layers of the enquiry and concept. Therefore, every design decisions made are linked to the bigger concept of the work. Here is an insight.
Share this project
Unveiling Language and Identity
This project questions the notions of language, cultural identity, writing and the materiality of language in relation to Africa and the diaspora. It focuses on the call for Sankofa (learning from the past) as a new way to design and find inspiration outside of the Western can...
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