Continuing our interest in offering exceptional opportunities for working professionals to expand their skills and create regional networks, we recently organized a bookmaking workshop for graphic designers. The workshop took place at Mophradat’s venue in Athens from December 1 to 5, 2025, with the participation of Christina Skaf, Engy Mohsen, Louise Dib, Rietlanden Women’s Office, Sara Bouzgarrou, Siwar Krai(y)tem, Sofia Fahli, and Valerie Arif.
Developed and led by Rietlanden Women’s Office (RWO), the workshop was an invitation to share different experiences of bookmaking, focusing specifically on the leap from designed spreads to physical objects. The workshop looked at how the conditions for making a book take shape in the design phase, methods of designing together, and the (limits of the) tools used to print, produce, ornament, and of the process itself.
During the five days, participants set their laptops aside and set about experimenting with rudimentary tools on forms of collaborative design. The limitations of distribution inspired the group to produce a makeshift publication together to explore how it might evolve through printing in each designer’s locality.
Christina Skaf is a graphic designer and art director based in Beirut. Her practice lies at the intersection of print design and production, publishing, cultural management, and alternative pedagogies. She is the co-founder and co-art director of Studio Kawakeb, a multidisciplinary visual arts studio that specializes in graphic design, animation, and editorial design. In 2016, she joined WARAQ Association, an artist-led, non-profit initiative committed to the support of graphic arts practices in the region, and is presently the program manager of TABAAN!, a publishing platform under WARAQ that is dedicated to collaborating with artists to design and produce contemporary, context-driven, and experimental publications and printed matter.
Engy Mohsen is a researcher, writer, and curator whose work sits at the intersection of art, education, and curatorial practice. Her research examines para-institutional art schools, cultural funding infrastructures, and the mobility of knowledge across the Arab world, with particular attention to how institutions navigate linguistic, political, and economic constraints. Her practice spans self-published printed matter, collective forms of organizing, and activist-driven constellations. As a graphic designer, she collaborates with artists and scholars on the development of websites and visual identities. Engy is a founding member and co-editor of K-oh-llective, a platform for resource-sharing among art practitioners in the Arab world, and part of the curatorial team at Les Complices*, a self-organised, community-based space in Zurich.
Louise Dib is a graphic designer and cultural practitioner trained in typographic design. Her approach to design is rooted in a dual interest in visual experimentation and socially-engaged cultural projects. After working in Paris and Marseille, she moved to Algiers in 2016, where she co-founded the graphic design studio Chimbo with Riad Hamed Abdelouahab. Within the studio, she develops a transversal practice that combines editorial design, visual identity, experimental publishing, and artistic workshops. She is currently working on the collaborative project derja b derja that explores the role of Algiers’ staircases through urban drifting, art, and publishing.
Rietlanden Women’s Office (2018, Amsterdam) is made up of graphic designers Elisabeth Rafstedt and Johanna Ehde. They are interested in current and historical methods of collaborative graphic design. Together they make the publication series MsHeresies which is about the ornamental in feminist collaboration. They give lectures and guest teach in book design and typography at various institutions around Europe and, together with Phil Baber of The Last Books, they organize the poetry reading series Don’t Pay Your Rent.
Sara Bouzgarrou is a Tunis-based printmaker and artist with a background in cultural coordination and production. She holds a master’s degree in interior architecture from the École des Beaux-Arts de Tunis and is also a graduate of the culinary school L’Académie des Chefs in Tunis. Since 2017, she has been running Le 5015, a risograph printing studio in Tunis that operates on a barter-based model to support and engage the local community. Her interests include independent printmaking, subversive modes of distribution, data and food sovereignty, permaculture, and intersectional social justice.
Siwar Krai(y)tem is a multi-lingual artist, designer, illustrator, and researcher based between Beirut and Amsterdam. Her research and artistic practice focus on multilingualism and language in times of transformation, exploring topics of belonging and alienation. She often utilizes forms such as diary entries, playful games, and calendars. She graduated from the temporary program Disarming Design at the Sandberg Institute which centered on the role of art and design under oppressed systems.
Sofia Fahli is a graphic designer, editor, and musician based in Casablanca. She is the founder of Atonale, a feminist publishing house and a space for editorial research, where she develops visual identities, editorial projects, and scenographic concepts for cultural institutions in Morocco and Belgium. A former teacher of typography and graphic design, she is now part of a Moroccan editors’ collective committed to shaping and strengthening local editorial practices. She also leads the musical project GAOUTA, exploring cold wave in Darija, performing solo on stage with drums.
Valerie Arif is an Egyptian graphic designer and creative director specializing in branding, event identities, and editorial design. Her work spans cultural and commercial projects. In 2021, Valerie launched a project titled hair_folder, which aims to think about hair in a very broad sense, primarily through photography.