Tahrif is a research and design platform that critically investigates Egyptian historical, political and social issues in the context of the technological and discursive conditions of our digital age. Through collecting, archiving and editing, found images are reformulated, repurposed and become a departure point for a series of discussions on political and social conditions. The word ‘Tahrif’ in Arabic is highly charged, often used to denote the sacrilegious manipulation of religious texts, it originally stems from the root of the word ‘letter’. Tahrif is then the act of rearranging or manipulating letters, words, language and history.
The currency of our world is images rather the words, Tahrif represents the evolution of storytelling, media and history from word to image. All images are found and collected with the intent of representing, repackaging and reformatting their meaning.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Basma Hamdy is a research-based designer, author and educator producing work that bridges historical, political and social issues with archival, documentarian, participatory, and critical mechanisms. She is an advocate for collaboration and participatory practices, believing that design must promote multiperspectivity. She has collaborated with historians, photographers, designers, activists and cultural organizations to create work that reformulates or challenges established norms or conventions.
Since 2011, she has been researching and documenting the creative output of the Egyptian Revolution culminating with the book ‘Walls of Freedom: Street Art of the Egyptian Revolution’ in collaboration with Don Karl, published in March 2014 by ‘From Here To Fame’ (Berlin). She is currently working on her second book ‘Found Khatt’ in collaboration with Noha Zayed, documenting found typography across Egypt. She has been interviewed and featured extensively in prominent international media –such as The New York Times, Fast Company, Jadaliyya, Huck, Der Spiegel and Print– and exhibited and spoke at several art and design festivals and conferences around the world such as Duke University’s Arts of the Revolution, Spielart Festival Munich and The Graphic Design Festival Breda among others. In 2016, Basma Hamdy was recognized for excellence in research by a panel of distinguished jurors as part of the Communication Design Educators Awards by Design Incubation.
Hamdy earned an MFA from MICA in 2003, a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2000 and a BA from the American University in Cairo. She is currently a candidate at PhDArts: Leiden University and The Royal Academy of Art (KABK), The Netherlands. She has extensive experience teaching in the Middle East and is currently Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar.