Hanya Selim
Visual Study for Arabic Illustrated Manuscripts
My research explores fictional Arabic Illustrated manuscripts, created between the Umayyad and the Ottoman dynasties. With the purpose of studying the grids and systems that were used to create them. Hoping it can inspire a new personal style for sequential storytelling that is more culturally relevant. The study aims to contribute to an ongoing anti-colonial, active wave among academics and practitioners to understand the design principles of Arabic visual culture. At a time when the curriculums taught in design schools in Cairo are primarily focused on Western principles, there has been a parallel effort among scholars and practitioners to dissect and experiment with the Arabic visual cultural heritage. This effort contributes to post-colonial studies that started in the 20th century as part of the Arab nationalist and socialist ideology.
However, most of the studies focus primarily on typography as a dominant element of presentation in the Arabic identity. Creating a knowledge gap for other elements of presentation, such as illustration. My research aims to address this gap by looking through archival material like illustrated manuscripts and dissecting the ways in which they were created.
The research process of this project is non-linear, starting with reviewing existing studies along with collecting and categorizing accessible manuscripts. Simultaneously, a visual analysis of the collected material will be conducted to identify visual conventions. The findings of the visual analysis will then be used as a reference to develop a new personal style that is not restricted to Western design principles.
