NIHONTEN: Japan in Lebanon

By Antoine Abi Aaad

The Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts, ALBA, University of Balamand recently organized a workshop and an exhibition “Nihonten” on the theme of Japan as seen by the Lebanese. Conducted by Antoine ABI AAD (Ph.D. in Design, University of Tsukuba in Japan), the purpose of the workshop was to expose a number of Lebanese advertising students to a new culture in order to open up their horizons. And indeed, one of the interesting outcomes of the workshop was the typographical mixing of Latin, Arabic and Japanese types. The 41 students from the school of Decorative Arts, section of Advertising and Graphic Arts followed the workshop for two weeks, and exhibited their works in the third week. ALBA is looking forward to exhibiting in Japan in the near future.

A new perspective on Arabic letters

Generally researchers and writers (especially westerners) tend to tackle the issue of Arabic letters from a religious angle. It somehow interests their public to frame Arabic within a religious context.

Beautiful religious works were executed in the Arab world through centuries of Islamic art, but it is high time that we stop reflecting the situation of the end of the 18th century, last great period of Arabic calligraphy (Othman), and look for/to new dimensions. Encouraging a new perspective at Arabic was one of the purposes of Nihonten, achieved through descriptions of Japan, in Arabic. A historical example would be that of the Spanish architect Antonio Gaudy who, although inspired by Arabic culture, was so original and so detached from traditional Arabic patterns: In that sense he made use of the heritage to move forward.
One of the new dimensions applied in Nihonten was the mixing of scripts: Latin/Arabic with Japanese. Latin letters through French and English, which are commonly used languages in Lebanon and Japanese language through its 3 systems of writing: Kanji, and the two syllable systems, the Hiragana and the Katakana. It is interesting to see weird mixtures of French, English, Arabic and Japanese languages through Latin, Arabic, Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana mixtures; it impresses people through their new approach of mixing types. In fact, this is how the Iranian designers are excelling internationally: impressing audiences with relatively new letters, Arabic ones. In fact, this is what was done with Japanese and Chinese characters in the last century. Chinese and Arabic calligraphies being the richest and oldest calligraphies accentuate this case comparison.

As for the Lebanese, visuals can be even more creative: multilingual by nature, the Lebanese can show their culture visually. It is a great potential that should be explored further.

For the complete series of posters follow the link http://www.posterpage.ch/exhib/ex201leb/ex201leb.htm