 So good afternoon and what I want to talk about is I'm going to talk specifically about the work of hot books and share some of the process that we go through and why we publish and all these questions that come up and the challenges that that come up while doing this. So before I talk about the future of Arabic design publishing, which is of course something that really I'm busy with since we've been publishing for the past 11 years. I'm thinking about, you know, where are we going, what is the future going to be like, what should we be doing or not doing or considering to change. And so it's a kind of moment of reconsidering what we do and trying to understand what we have done so far and how we can make it even more effective and enjoyable for us to do. I would end this conversation, this presentation talking specifically about one of the projects that we undertook which is the Arabic design library, which has a series of monographs that I would discuss more, more in depth. So before I publish about typography and design in the Middle East, I think to answer that, you know, I, if someone, when I was a kid if somebody asked me what did you want to become when you grow up publisher was not on my mind, even as a designer. I never had, you know, the idea that I would ever become a publisher. It's just that my journey in life has kind of led to this to this practice. And I have gone into publishing in a kind of innocent way, naive, maybe enthusiastic, I don't know the right description. So my first encounter with making books, well, I'm always loved reading so that's for me books were always part of my life but making a book was the first book I made was made because I felt as a designer and an educator at the time that I made it. There was a shortage of information that could help me in teaching, and would help me would help my students also, you know, learn about design that is relevant to the context where they are going to be practicing where they are going to be contributing to the culture. I launched myself into a research project totally on my, you know, out of personal initiative, not commissioned by anybody not on a grant none of that to look into why at the time and we're talking about in the year 2000 so and I started the research in the mid 90s. While I was teaching in the American Bersing Bay route. I was, I was faced with this question, why don't we have typefaces Arabic fonts that we can use that were, you know, from this time and age because what was what was available at the time where software where you have to kind of the funds were embedded in the software the funds were digitized from 1950s or 1960s or 1970s variations that were made maybe for other kind of printing platform type making platform or typesetting platform. It didn't really fit. And I remember the first book I ever had to design which, which was in Beirut I had to kind of design the Arabic part on one software and the English part on another software so it was kind of really weird to combine these things and to work with them. I asked myself this question, why is this the case and then I kind of went into this this whole journey, and ever since I'm kind of, that's all I do is to work on typography and design in the region. On the line, you know, I realized that we actually needed more than just a publication, or a few publications it was the first publication in English that was specifically on typography on Arabic typography. And of course it was a kind of compilation from different sources and then finding you know the information and looking of how they made sense and how they are relevant to designers was a journey by itself that I don't have to go into. But in a way it kind of put my mind into thinking well maybe we need a platform where these kind of research can happen where people designers can talk to each other find out through each other through practice, you know, through their practice through their problems their challenges, kind of help each other. And so that's was kind of the beginning of the foundation and the reason why we we made this platform that was launched in 2005. And the foundation, you know we did conference first first big activity with it which was very successful in the sense of bringing graphic designers type designers and people working in technology and calligraphers so different fields that I are connected but also independent to be in the same conference to talk to each other. And I think everybody who came to that conference actually really felt like they learned a lot from it and they enjoyed this encounter. And then the foundation we started organizing workshops and we do other things. But as we went along in the idea of continuing research that is practice based was very important. And so we, I will talk about just three projects very briefly because they are the, they were also the seed for making this public this publishing house. So we started with this idea okay so the first book I made was published by sake books who were. There was no specialist on Middle East Middle East anything Middle East studies Middle East art. But there was no no specialized publishing houses on design the second book I made which was a continuing result of a research that was practice based research was also pub was published by a specialized. He was specialized on graphic design, but then he was based in Holland and so, you know, by by contacts and things he found it interesting we published this publication but you know, it always felt like you had to go somewhere that was not quite published not quite specialized in what you really want. And so they were always a bit hard time had the hard time publicizing the book had a hard time selling it. You had to quite understand, you know, you had to kind of like convince them that was it wasn't just easy to go and publish a book that I felt at the time were very important books. So based on that, you know from these experiences I thought yeah if things in life don't don't exist the way you want them you have to make them, you know you have to say well if there is no publishing house that is specialized in graphic design in particular in the Middle East, about the Middle East or about the Middle East, then you have to make one. It's not complete, it must be possible, right. It is possible. So that was one of the reasons we made this publishing house so it became a kind of extension to the foundation so every time we had a research project we already had you know we didn't have to go looking for a publisher to do it for us we did it ourselves. Having said that I have a lot of respects for other publishers as well because as I started working on this I realized that actually, there's a lot of challenges and the reason, you know, if people want to make publishing and make a living out of it and make it into a business, then they have to take other considerations than whether what is being published is important or not. And I did that, you know, with the experience we face and I will discuss the challenges at the end of this. It's presentation but what we decided from the beginning is that, okay we know this is a very small market we know it's challenging for many reasons. It's a very small market to it's an audience most design, most graphic designers don't like to read that much so it's not a reading audience. We're not, we don't want to make books because you know they hit a very like in topic or they are very timely and they're going to make a commercial success. We wanted to make books that we like to make. It's that simple books that we think are really important that they have that they give an alternative that they are either a result of a serious research or they all result of serious research actually. But they are either like a result of a new research or they are documenting history or they are documenting new technologies that have to do with with type design and typography and graphic design. And for us that was important to show this kind of alternative history, you know that is not, not easy to publish because not also not, not, not often written about and if it is it's kind of snippets here and article there. A little information there, especially at the time when we started. Well, I think it's also remains the case because I think we are still the only publishing house that has specialized in publishing on Middle Eastern graphic design and typography. And we are maybe expanding it to a little bit broader visual culture issues but for the time being, not, not yet. We wanted to do work that will inform about the region but also inform people from the region about what existed, which is something we also lack. And for us it's like a combination of doing research excavating history, documenting things, and then making them possible by putting them in books and in publications that will be there for a long period of time. We wanted it to be also writing that is done by people from the culture with from within the culture so as much as possible. We don't exclude other writers but we really wanted to focus on writing from on writers from the Middle East that they write their own history I think that's really an important for me personally it's important. And so I think it gives a very different perspective than an outsider's perspective, and that outsiders perspective we already have in our educational system because we always read about the history of graphic design in the west and Germany and older European things and of course there's nothing wrong with that but we don't have a connection to what happened within, you know, right under our noses. And that history, writing that history or discovering that history uncovering it and actually writing about it and documenting it is a process that is very delicate. So you have to this, you know, there's a lot of issues to cover. There's a lot of information to cover but they are not easily accessible. So these are some of the goals that we started with and we thought you know if if we, we were going to make it so that we don't make money but we don't go bankrupt that was the, you know, let's try and stay in business for as long as we can. So the first things that that started our projects, like I said, were these research projects that I was doing on on trying to create or trying to facilitate research and development of Arabic typography and Arabic funds that were relevant each project had its parameters but they were kind of contemporary experiments and contemporary with different goals so a lot of them have started from, you know, we did three projects so far and they each start with very practical design needs addressing these needs addressing the cultural issues, trying to bring people from diverse cultures together because sometimes you know people you read and especially nowadays you read about people writing and talking and about decolonizing this and recolonizing that and, and these kind of things of course are important to bring alternative knowledge and this alternative history and to give it a platform on a worldwide, but it's also sometimes there's a danger of creating borders and separating people and saying you know we are us. So when I say we would like our publishing house of people from the Middle East to write about the Middle East I don't want to say that that's excluding others necessarily. I would like to write to write about everything and to talk about every culture and it's important that this discussion is open. So with these research projects we really did bring designers from different cultures to work together. I think when you have to work together and produce a project together you have a different conversation, your, your, the conversation is intense and concentrated so the first time we did this project we call the typographic matchmaking like, you know, bringing people together but also matchmaking scripts massmaking cultures. And we produced. So there was a team of designers Dutch and Arab and they each produced each team produced a typeface. And then we presented this typeface, you know, they did their own research they came up with solutions. And this is some of the examples of the work they did and then at the end of this we kind of produced we produced a publication that really explained, you know their process what they were thinking of how they thought about bringing cultures together through their the script and the design they were making, how they borrowed from each other what kind of conversations they have what kind of considerations they had. And that first book was also had to go to, you know, it was published by a Dutch publisher because there was nobody to publish on design in the Middle East. So we produced these and we produced a very nice event from it and then, you know, down the line and in kind of like maybe 10 years after the fact we thought it would be really nice to document the way we presented this project and so we created this book that you see in the beginning called El Heima which was the name of the exhibition. And then we produced a book about that but the book is also about cultural collaboration in through design. The second book, and the second research project we did we, we did the same recipe so to speak of bringing designers Dutch designers and Arab designers together. In this case it was about creating typefaces that are bilingual. So in both scripts to be used on an architectural and architectural applications and then three dimensional applications, and, and in this mix it was, we decided this was the moment where we decided this is the moment I really would like to have my own publishing house and so we set up a publishing house with my partner and, and this is in fact our first publication. It was very nice to have that first publication because the project had really kind of comfortable funding so we could produce a really beautiful publication with it. And then we opened it up to not only the experience of the designers that were working but we also invited other researchers and writers to kind of contribute on the topics that were raised through the research so the book is pretty wealthy with different and looking at you know the history of lettering let's say in traditional architecture in Cairo but then also looking at you know graffiti in Beirut and political graffiti in Beirut, writing on the street or, you know things like you know in different areas through typographic design and murals in Rotterdam so it was kind of like a really nice mix of different different different topics and perspectives. This is kind, this is a bit some slides from the team that was working on the on the research project the designers themselves and that kind of trips we did and the intense conversations we had throughout the project with also with the audience so we visited places and had conferences and talks and then there were guests and then it was really a nice exchange to also kind of evaluate how you're working on the type design itself. And this is some examples from it. And the third time we did this project and this is a book that's still in progress it's kind of really behind schedule. But it was about specifically the situation in in Morocco where you have three different scripts that are the Arabic the English, the Latin, and the TV now which is the MSL languages that script for the MSL languages. And so we had also a team that does multi cultural that worked on on creating three type faces for that. And this is a little bit the idea so this is the TV now Arabic and Latin, and the different approaches that people took in for developing their type faces. We worked also with with creating publications that come out of exhibition so this was a different kind of research that was more research on the ancient scripts of Arabia, and then taking these, this, this research and making a kind of presentation of that, and then applying these scripts into new design. products, like jewelry fashion textiles etc furniture several makes, and then kind of making a publication also from it. And the last project that is really the topic I think of this is the most, you know, in some ways, the research on the history of the scripts and these have something to do with looking back, rather than looking forward so the first two, the research on the typographic matchmaking was really trying to look forward to see where we can, you know, bring the discussions about Arabic typography beyond you know traditional to respond what we know which we have loads of lots of publications and examples of, you know where do we go next what is the next shape that these funds should take. So in this project, you know while I, I was working on publishing and research I realized also that through discussions with friends and colleagues and colleagues that have just recently published a whole history of typographic design by a shop and I some know what they they made a kind of survey of, you know, of a certain period on the history of graphic design which I think is a very valuable book. We decided before they did their book but we decided to not not go in that direction we wanted to really look. It's a very different approach to tell the story by telling the story of the designers themselves for me that is something that most a lot of times we forget you know we see work and we see. We've seen especially recently you know with all these images that you find on Instagram and people that put their collection of stamps or collection of street signs or whatever and they call it an archive which is technically not an archive, but a collection of images. But it has no context and that's really very problematic for me because I think it's very important to understand, you know, the designers that made this work what were they thinking of it's not just visual it has a meaning it has a purpose it has. It tells something beyond just the artifact itself and that you when you dissociate that and you make it into just banal pictures. You lose the value of design. And people start to think you know that that being a designer is something that is like okay you know some something that you do for a living but it's actually not that important which is in fact quite wrong. Because designers work are so prevalent in society they influence people's thinking they influence people's aesthetic sense. They influence the way that we read and understand information. So it's very important to know who these people are and why they were doing what they were doing. So this launch this this this library that we call that library that we wanted to create monograph that are really very deeply research about you know they are concise but they are still a very serious research about a designer the body of work, but also their particularities and we tried in this series to create an overview of what is happening in the Arab world at the time we we we kind of limited it to like let's say starting 1950s to 1980s. So looking at the older generation of designers you know our predecessors are people that we should know about what and often we don't know enough about or not really not properly. So we wanted to look at them and then we tried to find you know make it spread as much as possible across different countries in the Arab world. But also look at different specializations so people that work more with illustration people that work more with typography people that have done specifically research on fonts. So it could be a very big project that somebody worked all their life on it could be a direction that they've done you know specialization they put themselves in, and we tried to find what I would call the pioneers of design because a lot of them really worked all their lives and all the people that we will feature we are it's an ongoing series. They worked all their life on in a very concentrated way, and in a kind of consistent way in many cases. And it's really good to see, like the trajectory of their lives, you know just to see the developments that they've gone through. Let me show you some examples of those. We started the first book we did was on helmet to me helmet to me is probably if you're Egyptian you know him very well because you've seen all his book is that he's famous for all the children's books he's done for that shuru, but helmet to me is more than just that you know he's done. I mean, not that that is not enough, but he's amazingly prolific. He's done a lot of work. I mean, he is trained as a designer he worked all his life as a designer but he's also painter, and he did a lot of publications, a lot of book design not just cover design, although he's known for his cover he's known for big publishers in Egypt, like that he like that shuru but he also did work in Beirut for a period of time for my sister did a subtle idea on this and my sister's national data set. Anyway, one of those impossible long Arabic names. I mean, he did he did a lot of public work on on design and he was very. He had a very particular style. We were very interested, you know the research that was done was done by a smith on the author of this book, and she really looked at not just what he was famous for his illustrations but also the work that he's done on lettering the way he came up with magazines and publications his playful experiments with with layout. So, covering all the aspects that he came up with and his relationship to history, you know, because in his work he references a lot of history but then he takes liberties and makes very, you know, playful illustrations that could only be Egyptian in some ways. We published this in the same year and a book by that was written by Yara Khoury Namur, and she worked on the typographer Nasser Khattar who was also dedicated his life to a type system to creating this in the system that you call the and this idea of actually liberalizing or innovating and restructuring the Arabic script and making it easier to read for beginners and for children, and then it became you know his lifelong experiment that he worked on and the book really documents this journey and also puts a lot of the work in context with all these movements that were happening, you know, about how to teach children all these theories like the Montessori school series, you know, how to make reading accessible, reading an experiment, how do we use that as a tool to make, you know, people at the time that he started, nations where there was a lot of literacy, how to facilitate literacy, how to make people have an easier time to read. So he made a lot of work so this book documents the story and looks at you know his process of designing as well because he was also an architect and a designer. And so he was thinking in all these social issues but he was also translating them into form and what was what was his considerations, how he did it, how he wrote about it, and so forth. In the case for example, like in the case of Helmi Tuni there was no archive but the man is so prolific that you go in any, you know, you can you can find his work everywhere you can just go shopping for books for children you have tons of stuff. So his work was everywhere in Qatar's case it's different because his work was not everywhere people used it in many, in many in that period of time in the 1950s. They used his funds and they existed but it's a story that is not anymore in this time and age, but the lucky part about about history that I think is very interesting, you know, because here we're talking about archives is that he inspired his work in incredibly he had everything. He had everything documented was super organized. And at some point you know, Yara went to to to look at what he had and she was completely shocked by how much there was, she was not aware of it. And it was nice in the end because he passed away after you know the book was done after he's been, he had passed away for quite some years. So it was also working with with a family and the family eventually because we published this book could actually find a place to house the house so they moved the archive to the to from the house of that a person or home to the library of the American University in Beirut so there was very nice that the book was also a way to, to give value to this work because otherwise it's just a pack of old papers you know, documents and things that that have no value by themselves but have a cultural value. And so how do we bring that how do you how do you bring that out. A book is one way to bring it out. And that is that was very nice to see that you know our book was useful for the family as well, and also for saving this archive from completely disappearing because in probably in private places you don't know what would happen to it. I mean, Yasmin Tehan also made a book on Abdul Adir Al-Naoud, who's another pioneer Syrian designer, who also was the first to set up a graphic design school in Damascus in the University of Damascus. And she goes over his work, and all his peculiarities and all his experiments with with, you know, the Arabic script and the playfulness and the graphic quality, which is very apparent in his work. And he had a book on published on Gia Al-Azawi, who's a very well known visual artist and painter and sculptor and artist bookmaker. But he, he had a period in his life where he worked, he did create graphic design work and he was very open to show that work because that work never gets the attention as the work as his work as an artist because he's more famous. So his work as an artist is considered more, yeah, it's more known. So Lena Hakim worked with him, and again this was another example of a person that had an amazing archive and is super organized. So it was a real joy to work with him also that other than the fact that his personality is fantastic. So we made a documentation about his work for that he did for posters for for cultural projects that he was working on. Also, part of the book is showing, you know, his own lettering that he uses in his printmaking, his own drawing. So his relation between art and design and his work is really very close and very fluid. So we made the last three titles that came out regrettably in 2019, like when everything was locking down so we never had a proper presentation of them. They came out in 2019. And one of them I wrote myself, which was on Kabil Hawa who is a graphic designer and he is one of the first design studios to develop their own font typefaces. He has a very particular style in working with the Arabic script and designing fonts that is all his own that is kind of like really close to his handwriting, and he had his own ideas of creating a contemporary typeface so his, his, his style his writing his signature of fluidity between you know making three dimensional typographic sculptures to designing fonts to designing visual identities is all very, very clearly documented in the book. And it brings also work that is maybe if you most of the work was produced for Saudi Arabia, even though the studio was had they had a studio in Saudi Arabia and and in Beirut. But a lot of the work has has a kind of context in both places which is very interesting case study also how do you design across Arab countries, and what kind of work was being produced and so forth. And then we did also a book on Emil Menheim who is, I think, known, like his work is is is known because it's a lot of the things that he produced that his his strength was producing magazines and newspapers that were in Arabic for the he's still, you know, he's still living and producing that kind of work. And it's of course work that you see every day and you come across but you know nobody, like, people take it for granted. And I remember that, you know, I was fascinated that he was the one who designed Al-Akhbar because Al-Akhbar was the first time you see in a newspaper that just completely moves away from the traditional look of newspapers and all his experiments so Lara Balagh did his her research with on his work and then, you know, spend quite some time with him to find the pieces and to organize the material. It's always in in some ways when you are working with a living artist it's easier in that sense because they are there but you know they they most designers are sitting and working and they have no time to to organize that material so you have to spend time with them and if they are still practicing they have other occupations so the research takes time and the organizing and archiving of this material and documenting it takes extra time but there is a very good advantage of having like dire conversations with them about what they are doing and what they are what they have done and why they have done it and how is it you know how is it evolved over the years. This book is really important because it's important to also look at things that we use every day and look and give that value, you know the newspaper what it looks like what what is the choice of images. Why does he design the typefaces for the headlines you know what does he do when he thinks about what kind of logo type to create or must head to create for this newspaper or for this magazine. And the last one we did in the series was on Selvada another very well known artist and she's more known for her sculptural work. But she has also worked, you know, this was also another interesting case where you have a design. She's done a lot of design work, not necessarily graphic design she's done a little bit of graphic design. But her language her art language and her work as as an artist had something graphic in it and it's very interesting to see that how she applied that into other things like her textile designs her objects, her cutleries her jewelry her fashion style. Yeah, fashion pieces. And this was again a work that was done by Yasmina and she did the research and the publication. And this is some of the examples so you see a bit you know the connection between the tapestry the paintings that she's done the sculptures her brochures and even like book cover designs that she's done for friends. It's not taking too much time but okay, I want to finish this talk by saying like, you know, there's a few issues that we've had to, I've had to look at as a publisher. You know, as, as a designer because this is my background. I'm trained as a graphic designer I do research on design and typography and I work as a designer I work as a curator of design of design exhibitions. I'm totally in the world of design. And then when it comes to publishing you know I've been asked like how do you choose, you know, what, what, what kind of topic to make a book on. What how do you feel, you know what is your responsibility and I think that's a very big thing to say like what is your response. Yeah, I don't know and I think the responsibility is to make work that is honest and authentic. And then of course you're going to choose things that you, you have, you feel is valid because you're investing so much in it you're not going to work on a, on a topic that you think you don't know if it's not, you know, I don't know if it's valid. And, but I think you also have to trust the fact that you have experience and that you've seen a lot and that you've been involved in design for a long period of time so your choices are as good as, you know, as, as they can be. But he's going to tell you like no maybe this is a bad choice. And a lot of times we choose work and we don't, we don't choose to publish on on on topics that we don't feel are important for the for the longer, for the longer time, you know so we want to create work that will be valid in 10 years from now like the first book that I published, you know, 20 years later, it's, it's, it's still valid and you can update it a little bit and I republished the second edition because there's always need, there's always people wanting it. So this is the kind of books that we would like to publish books that are not like, you know fashionable or I mean that not there's nothing wrong there's all there's room for all kinds of books but sometimes you have to make a choice. We also had to make a choice of saying we're going to stay a small publishing house with all the problems that that comes up with, but at the same time we we want you know we have somebody like, you know, like publisher like hyphen press who's publishes very small quantity of books, but they are very well researched they are very well designed they are very cared for, and they are always a joy for now from now till forever probably. And that doesn't, you know, not try to compete and make like a huge publishing house because then you have to take other things into consideration which we don't want to do. But then you know we had to still face some things like how you know we we we discuss we we we know a lot of people in the in the in the in the field so we have contacts people sometimes suggest, have you seen this work and you know about this designer sometimes we I know a lot of designers and know a lot about designers, but I don't know everybody so people constantly contribute knowledge, you know, with exchange as share ideas. And then you have to, you know, look into this work and then some all the time that we come up with is, is this work available is there enough to make a book how is it or how is it archived and so the often archiving or finding the material is is is a journey is like a journey of discovery and it takes time, but at the same time I think it's really important that it's done. And so, you know, it's not our publishing has been more than just publishing it's also been about really researching and digging and helping and supporting. We try we try to find, you know, authors that are young that are maybe not and maybe not all of them I experienced and so we're interested in nurturing also this idea of, you know, writing and thinking critically and publishing on your own literature on design in particular. We've faced some challenges. Like, who are we publishing for is readers interested in reading, you know, young people don't like to read so much designers graphic designers in particular don't like to read so much typographers are a little bit better they really love books and love reading so you know, we also learn as we go. Regardless of how many people are going to read the book I think sometimes you have to publish because you believe this book should exist and maybe someday it will have readers maybe it won't. And you never know ahead of time. What we face which is really more problematic is is how to bring these books to the people that want to read. Cover that you know the best way is to find alternative ways because distribution. If you are not making, you know, if you are not a huge publisher it's very complicated distributing across the Middle East is complicated there's a lot of. There's not enough book shops book shops are too small to handle books there's no specialized book shops and design. And those that are specialized they kind of there's none actually very few. They're either too small or they are interested in like the, you know, the, the big publishers the big names the Western stuff. And the little part the little book shops have you know more cafe like and social things so it's not really really. The distribution through the traditional network is not is not very comfortable and it's not very easy to do. And we're not very successful in doing it, we do our best but I think it's, it's almost impossible. So we have to think about new models of distribution models that are more like bringing people together making an event so that it is not just about taking giving you know selling books but it's also about discussing and like really bringing the topics behind me. And so yeah we wonder about our future and and how we're going to predict how can we sustain it or we continue working like this you know we. We hope that our audience and our readers are vocal tell us what they think and that we have a nice conversation with them. And thank you I hope I didn't talk too much and went over my time. Thank you. Thank you for that we, we can go for two more if you're ready to share your screen. Okay, so yeah amazing presentation first of all, Hoda. Thank you so much it was such a lovely journey. And, of course, thank you Hannah and Dan for inviting me today such an honor to be with you. And always alongside other just to give you a quick heads up I think it's important at the beginning of the presentation that this presentation is not going to be, it's not going to be very visual. It's not going to contain much of the of the of the content from the archive, but it will be steered more towards the politics of the archive itself, which I think is is an important side of of archiving and we're, it's important to have that discussion and bring it to the forefront. So we can have a conversation about. So. So to start I think something to have at the very, you know at the background of our of the rest of the presentation is to say that any theory of the idea of the archive that would come from this region is has to be sometimes like somehow bound to its contextual landscape so they're not going to be disconnected in any way so it will be very specific on each on each landscape or location. And most of the things that I will be basically talking about today. I think as also Hoda talked these were not things that was that were obvious to me when I first began and also began with this sort of utopian naivety if you if you want to put it in that way. So that didn't that all of that all of these ideas that will that will go through them now were not very obvious to me. And they were the, they are coming from the constant engagement with the topic of of the archive and all the questions that they keep on coming back over and over again as we're working in this process of archiving. And it's very important to say, at the beginning of the presentation that most of the things, and a lot of the ideas that influences my thinking are coming from the Algerian French philosopher, Jack's data. And as a start I think I would like to begin exact like maybe something like what the leader actually started his famous book, the archive fever and he starts by saying, let us not begin at the beginning, nor even at the archive, but rather at the word archive. And then he, and then he provides some sort of an an etymology of the word archive, which gives him or provides for him a foundation to his later thesis about about power he uses these definitions to as a metaphor for power. And he starts by tracing it back to the word archie, which is the Greek word, which he then says it illustrates two main important principles. And these ones are the ontological principle which is the, which is nature, physical, historical, which is basically to say the origin or the first or the principle, and then maybe the primitive. And in short, basically it's the commencement of things. And then the other principle is the nomological principle which is the law, the authority that the sort of order that comes with human beings commanding so in the order of the commandment so it means both commencement and command. And then he then starts to trace the actual word of the archive. And that comes from the Latin one archivium or archie, which in turn comes from the Greek archaeon. And that is basically the house, or the domicile, or the home of the supreme or the superior judges at the time, and which they are referred to you generally as archons, they were called the archons. And these, these were manifested, the, you know, those who are in power, who command those with basically political power that, and then also their, their documents guardians so like, they don't only maintain the documents in their homes and their houses, but they also protect it, and they also have the, the right to interpret it as well. And the archons, yeah, so as I said, like, they don't just safeguard the official dock, these official documents, they also have the power to sort it as well as as much as interpreted. So the archives are both places. There are the places themselves the locations, whether physical or non physical, and, and the law with the power that comes with the law. So for for Derrida, and his, you know, he has been in his life he was constantly preoccupied with the concept of the archive as a place where basically power, particularly political power originated. It's almost evident in most of his writings, even if it was not under the name of archive. For instance, in an interview with, with a French film magazine in 2001, he states that the archive preoccupies the future. And that idea is extremely important for the conception of the archive. And, and that very shift of the archive of our view of the archive as not a place of just the past, but also a place of determining or predetermining the future makes it a political place by default. And, and, and that's why it should be of concern, and all the workings of the archive should be of concern to all of us. And another sort of like, could encapsulates that he says, it is the question of the future, the question of the future the question of a response of a promise, and of a responsibility for tomorrow. And the idea of this future represents, you know, the promise is extremely crucial. It's very clear to me at least that that archives, and the means of of archivization has direct influence. I mean, as of course, as what I said to, and a relationship to the to the history to our history, which in turns, somehow that history formulates our understanding of the moment of who we are now, and oriented somehow to the future so like there's a trail, very important trail that always starts with the, with the archive. And here I quote the writer and historian Michelle Nass from a book called the end of the word and other teachable moments. He said that the archive is thus as much about the future, the future as the past. And it is turned up as much towards the performative affirmation of a unique event as as towards the past event and I'll talk about, I'll explain better what performative affirmation means. And so, archives, generally, in a very wide and general sense, the, it can be said that the exists between what we can call the revelation and the revealability and to illustrate that between between these two states. And we can, we can talk about three main pillars that can easily map this, hopefully easily. It's not, it's not an easy topic at all. And there's this this the first pillar is the archived event, which is, you know, we can say that it encompasses all traces of being everything. So you have the archiving event, which is this performative affirmation, your decision to the moment where you're deciding to archive something. And this is where the whole notion of, of archives presents itself to be a bit problematic because this is exactly where the authority comes in through a process of identification selection classification and and order. And the third pillar, which is a continuation of the of the first two is or an extension, and it's also an extension of the exercise of that power over the archived event by means of granting access constructing borders, a physical or non physical doesn't matter, and having total authorship over the material. So let's, I want to reflect a little bit more about these three pillars, just to go through them. So, like the archived event and the trace. This distinguishes the archive from traces, generally as an idea. The reader here would argue that it's the finitude of the archive and the necessity for selection censorship and eraser that distinguishes the archive from trace because you know trace was this general wide idea that is very difficult to grasp and very hard to see any limits of it. And this is very important because here he sort of parallels the archive to the human psyche and memory and reference of course to for its psychoanalysis. You know the human psyche is finite. We don't necessarily remember everything we can't remember everything. I think our own, you know like our very own survival is dependent as much on forgetting, as it is on remembering. Maybe underscores this point, like, with great clarity I would say in a text called titled traces and archives. And then he, like I think a quote from this text would be would be beneficial here and it camps, camps late his, his, his concept conceptualization of the trace. And the traces are co extensive with the living experience so like you cannot distinguish both from each other so it's basically so it can encompass a whole universe, virtually anything. So this is exactly where we're, you know where the difference between what a trace is which is everything, and then the archive which, you know, which, which is has this finitude that defines it versus the infinite traces that we have. And, okay, and, and for the archive, and then moving into the archiving event itself. For that archiving event to happen some some sort of authority has to select something. And this selection is interestingly is referred to and there is writings as a great act of violence. And this will always will always make this, this will always remain the question of archiving this this inherited violence. And this also constantly puts in question the process of selection itself, and everything involving involved in it, because with this selection comes, of course neglect. What is selected is forgotten, and, and, and lost, and what selected is saved for the present and the future, or deemed as worthy. So who decides the questions or who decides what to live and what not to live. And this is not definitely this is not a new or a novel question within archive theory, this has always been there. And it's, it's, it has to be always in the forefront of our general discourse about archive. So, yeah, and then basically our archivization and, and is not necessarily this romanticized mainstream process of preservation of the past, but it's also a process of a razor and losing as well. It's also like our memory. We are constantly as human beings, you can say that we're engaged in the constant process of archiving our own memory. And we have to do a great extent. And then the third you have activation animation and access. And this is where a few also a few problems also rise in relation to institutions. In relation to a few institution and individuals who are, we can, we can say that they're safeguarding physical archives in Egypt and mostly, most of my talk will be about Egypt because this is the landscape that I can sort of kind of map. Here, of course, the reader draws a parallel between archives and psychoanalysis, as I said, which considers the archives as the collective mind of humanity, there are spaces where it, like, the same practices that happens within psychoanalysis can be also thought of within the archive space. So we intentionally retrieve memories. We revisit memories we reflect on memories and process information that is sometimes suppressed suppressed neglected avoided or overlooked in some sense. So if archives can be considered as our collective memory that through the process of selection. And it is our future, shouldn't we all be involved in that to some degree, in the process of archive, or at least the process of selection. And I think the very least have a fundamental right to access that material. I think the mechanisms that are by which entities and individuals design access to archived material can also take a violent turn because because if you're not allowing someone that you're not allowing someone to their own memory to their own history. And that raises a lot of questions as well with it like who gets access and when, and how, how the material of the archive being activated and engage with what of what efforts are made to animate material and bring attention to it. And here I use the word animate in contrast with in animate which can be said to be dead if there's something is there, and it's in animated then it can be considered almost as dead which, or like maybe in the readers words he would say, living dead. Yeah, so, so giving that context. These processes exist in the process of archive, which, which actually which context that do the exist in like, as I said, I'm going to be talking about Egypt because this is where I can sort of. I had my own experience within that most of my experience was in Egypt, and I could see problems and issues clear in that context. So I can map that landscape very quickly. So now for the first thing that you have you have the national or like the state public archives, and these public archives in Egypt exists existing in an extremely paradoxical way. And they both exist and they don't really exist. On the one hand, they're physically structurally that they're, but at the same time, you know, they're either inaccessible or inhabitable or the process of entering or exiting is extremely difficult. So sort of rendered invisible in a way. So, and so like their physical existence is not at all a proof of their, their function. And I think the condition of these archives have been intentionally neglected because of many, of course, many interlocking reasons like everything else. And at the center, if I would have to say something that is the foundation or like the core problem of that or that led to that problem is I would say that there is a fear of the archive and inherited fear of the archive, and what the archive could feel. That's, that's, that's a very, very important point to stress on, because you know, maybe somewhere in these archives like the secret to corruption to injustice to misconduct that is perpetuated by the political systems can be found and exposed. And that's sort of like that causes like some sort of an archive paranoia, because it's a it's a paranoia of not namely the archive but more of an information and context, and the truth, if you want. Therefore, their approach was that nothing should leave the archive, nothing at all, I think. And so over the years, what what happened, or you know, you can only need to only go to the National Archive and you can see it, you know, as clear as the, as the day that through over the years that has been slow movement towards a total destruction of the archives that you know the public ones by means of neglect abandonment, causing not only, like, not only the materials deteriorated but also the processes of accessibility and representation of, of these archives. Yeah. So, when you when you think about it in that way then you could say, Okay, so from that perspective then incinerations of archives and you know, and destruction of books generally. It makes total sense, because they are, they are considered as evidences, which, of course happened in Egypt during the revolution and and it happened that happened and happens everywhere. But now in the public archive when the National Archive in Egypt access remains still severely obstructed these poor practices have led, not just to, as I said, the iteration of material but also the death, the absolute. Total death of research practices. And along that journey diminishing the value of these materials so they become some sort of these banal objects that no one cares about and then that trickles down in the system that leads people you know mishandling them with absolutely no care or attention. So, for example, some cultural heritage materials that we can now put into brackets that are books, magazines and other maybe newspapers are auctioned sometimes by the box as as as old paper so you can sort of imagine how all of these practices led to that moment. Which of course sounds like from, like it can sound disastrous but actually it turned out to be like there is an opportunity there. And that opportunity of course was sort of taking on by, you know, private archives it has been exploited or like I shouldn't say the private archive I should probably say the exclusive one. But the archives have exploited the deterioration of the state archives to build their own legacy. So the state archives being indifferent at all of the benefits, or as I said before and I as the reader would say, of the promise of the archive, and being paranoid generally about it. The private archive actually welcomed that material and, you know, almost possessed it all in a way to like embrace this material and utilize that for its own benefit. So by making the access to the archive and experience that is more or less an exclusive one. That's sort of play with this, you know, first and third and second, like second and third pillar of what constitutes an archive. And of course, I mean gives the private archives power. That's, that's, you know, and also like I would say that unquestionable power right now because no one is talking about these issues or no one is bringing these issues to the general discussion. The powers are the powers of selection and access. And it can also be said, monopolizing and withholding the power to our collective future in a way. So controlling and limiting knowledge. And that leads obviously to controlling and limiting knowledge production to a privileged privilege few basically who are connected to it in some sense, making sure that you know that what is produced from it is related to its name in a way in which it uses that production to sell itself back to the public as a space where you know where these kind of knowledge can with these types of knowledge can occur. And then you have the personal collections and inheritances and here I'm sure Hoda also can relate to all of the problems that this comes with. And, and, and generally from our observations as a as an initiative that has been working with archives is that there is wealth of material. Again in the language of the reader can only be described as in, you know, under a state of house arrest, whether a personal collection or people who are, you know, maybe still with us or, or the inheritance of people who passed on. So, so I think this is very rarely talked about. And it is also raised raises tons of other questions in which also the reader talks about in some of his writings questions that has to do with what is private and what is public. Right. And then at this point, or as he would phrase it, you know what is the moment proper to admit something to an archive. That's a very, very, you know, hard question to answer. And then there's this other question about the other. Once the, you know, the person passes on. It's always the other who decides what happens to that inheritance. Does it the other have complete control over that material, or does it belong to the public. These are all very important questions to, to talk about. And here I think the metaphor of the Archon that we talked about at the very beginning can be set to apply on all of these whether, you know, being the state or an institution, or even a person an individual with an inherited power. To move these things around to decide what to be seen and what not to give access and don't give access and all that stuff and in doing so comes great power. The archives are concerned, as I said with with the future, the working, all of the things that I'm talking about should be the concern of all of us, because you know, these are, this is our future in a way, as much as it's our past. So I'm going to call the leader to code the leader here. And I think that was the archive fever. There are no archives without a power of capitalization or of monopoly or quasi monopoly of a gathering of a statutory traces that are recognized as traces in the words. In other words, there are no archives without political power. So we're talking about political power here. So in such a landscape with, of course, the obvious sort of withdrawal of the public archives power. Where is power exactly who has the power for that, for that landscape, it's power basically is centralized in the private archive. And for me that's now is very, very clear. And here it's, it's, it's, here's I think where the digital archive can come in acting as some sort of an accessible extension to the inaccessible physical archive. Right, the physical private one, and also like the state, the state one. And I think under undermining what's, I think more important is undermine the current power structure and central and centralize decentralized the power. I hope that I'm not talking too long. Yeah. That's the digital one. And of course, I mean, I'm sorry. Well, am I, am I over the time? We're like, no, no, we've still have like five, five minutes if you can wrap up. Sure. Because we need to do some time for you. Sorry to be a person. No, no, no, it's okay. Okay, so yeah, basically, of course, the digital archive comes with its own set of questions and problems. It's a unique proposition that the digital archive can offer, as I said, it can decentralize and dismantles the powers inherited in the monopoly of the private archives, and that's how we can think of the digital archive in our moment and are in our context as design activism. And I'm actually done. Thank you. Thank you with one question, one quote from or it's okay. I'm not. No, please go ahead. Leave us with the book. Okay, so the quote is actually found on the entrance of the entrance door of the center or state archive in the Republic of Uzbekistan, and it says, without the past, there's no future. That's the statement. And thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you on this. This wasn't too heavy. This was quite quite the journey. No, no, it was great. Maybe I'll start with questions for the both of you as people gather their salt, their thoughts. Mo, I was wondering if you can tell us a little bit about how the air book cover archive was conceived, given, I mean, against the backdrop of all of what you just said, how does it designer. I wonder how the how a designer found herself as a publisher about how designer, how does a designer find himself an archival. And if you could tell us more. So on the journey on the one hand, and on the actual content of the archive for the, for those in the audience who aren't familiar with it how it started on Instagram and then after if we can, if I can ask for that to kind of comment and engage with that. So basically both of these things are repositories of design practices and objects documented in different ways, whether in book covers or in a more like in a deeper journey into the design library as a whole. I can ask for that to reflect on those two different approaches and methods to keeping these repositories and how does the library benefit from an archival book cover and vice versa. So, yeah, I mean the archive, the project itself came from a kind of hopeless attempt to to to find something that I can relate to, or something that that inspires me that is not western and it also at one point in time it felt that there was too much. There was a there was a disconnect between me and everything around me which was inspired and affected by the Western design canon. And so I would, I started by going basically on on like these small journeys and old book street markets and I would, I would feel so much pleasure being in that in these places. And some people would, they would say like it's the dust that that comes out from these old books that gives you like the that may get you infected with the curiosity bug. But but I felt really connected to like the visuals they were like extremely visually stimulating all of it. I didn't really when I when I compared that to that when I entered like the library that is, you know, in like inside like a clean library like a new publisher or something. I didn't feel the same joy and the same pleasure and the same connection. So I started to sort of gather these tiny little, you know, things that I found interesting at the time. I would, I don't know, I can't even remember why to be honest I started this Instagram page but I did start this Instagram page to share that with people you know share that with my friends share that with the people around me and maybe the community. And as I was like going on these journeys I like the more I went on these journeys I'm the more I realized that there is that there's a need for for that because it doesn't exist or if it does that it's inaccessible or dispersed in every possible location. So as the journey went on. I mean that was like, as Hoda said, that was like a very naive way of starting something. So I started like that and then over time we have grew extensively on Instagram and social media. And, and since then things kind of took on and and the more I, I dived into the project the more I realize how important and how foundational it is to projects like, you know, what Hoda is doing, for instance, that that could be at least a starting point to look at. And other maybe inspiration and other forms of writing, I mean, I also write a design repository, like we, we draw on some of the material from the archive as well. So we're in, like, now the project that has grown so much, we now have like more than 4000 pieces and not just throughout our experience and our journey. We started to expand what we what we archive as well. So when we come across sketches and notes and you know, other forms of documentations and context we do archive those as well. And now we're about the 4000 books and different instances. And very soon we're going to have the, the digital archive, the digital website, the actual digital archive which will contain all of that material and we're working on it at the moment. So that, again, everyone can have access and we can facilitate, you know, that access as best as we can. I hope that that answered the question. Yeah, I can I ask question before because I actually forgot what you asked me and I'm so terrible to make you ask it again. But I have a question for actually for formal. I mean, I think when you first approached me about this I was very happy to hear that somebody is actually doing this seriously because what I see, of course, on Instagram is that you have a lot of people collecting things or Pinterest or other places where you can collect images and just throw them there and they are really nice and kind of inspirational but you can you lose you lose context and I think that when you start and everybody starts to call it archives which is very dangerous because they're not archives archives have to be like really researched and they have to have reliable information or at least you hope they have reliable information. The question for you more is how do you manage to like collecting the imagery and putting it there is one thing, but finding like the stories behind this text and finding the information and you know who did what and why and you know, putting like meta data with these with these images is really in very very important. So how do you go about doing it. I mean, I'm curious because you know we make a whole book about something so. Right. No, it's it's, it's, it's, it's very important for us we don't really are process of archiving or digitizing the covers of books is not to scan the cover. It's the scan the cover and all the possible possible information that can be taken from that piece. So we scan the cover we scan the book cover the spine, the inside pages the number of pages we there's a, there's an index we scan it there we we have a list of things that we have to gather from each instance which is the who's the author that you know the publishing house which here is it. If there's any other further information we gather that. So that's, that's basically. That's basically that the usual way of collecting the data, right, like the general way of collecting the data but there are other instances where we engage or we archive for if let's say we're archiving the work of a famous designer, for instance, then there's two more things and more stories, you know, maybe sketches maybe no it's maybe stuff like that and then we make sure that we get all of that. And then and then so that's the on the part of the actual scanning event right. There's this other layer that the movement from this physical reality or like the digital file into the web goes through a process of of course, adding you know these layers of metadata and you know. descriptions of these instances and that's that's something that we still haven't done yet we're in the process of starting that. But all of these are very, very interesting, you know, spaces because we, we were thinking of conducting workshops on how do you describe a cover because it's not as obvious as you would think. It's not as if, yeah, I mean book, like lettering done in the style of X or, you know, the same thing is, or like this illustration style is like, whatever. There's a lot more at play and it can be as simple as that it can be really play right we can get together and and talk about how can we describe these, these different styles and these themselves can be interesting and can be taken on as something that can be added on the website and then also like we can also open it up to people to have different iterations of these descriptions or like add on comment on them. So like there's tons of ways that you can engage with that. And then on the website we're planning to always reference the physical places where these places where these instances exist in so that if someone really wants to see the physical instance they can go and look at it and most of all we always have the ISBN or the depositing number which is IDP people can go to the National Archives and, you know, they can take it out if they want. So what I think it's very interesting also is that you are archiving material that is not like, that is not unique in the sense that, you know, this printed matter so it might exist in many places at the same time. I mean, when I was doing my PhD on book design, and actually I did it on you know the role of design book design as an agent of change and I was it took me 10 years to do it precisely because first there is so much material. So how do you first find the material, find the reliable thing, a lot of times it's not the book designer is not mentioned or often it's depending on the type of book it could be only that they did an illustration or they did the cover totally and so sometimes they're not even mentioned at all. And you can I mean it was really it took it really took me 10 years to do this work because I had to do it alone and I to do it over a period and of course there was no archives but yeah what is the archive of a printed book, many libraries as the archive. So which library to go to to get the best books and you know what's what publishers should you look at and what is the most relevant thing so it's kind of changed actually the research changed eventually from going talking about design to talking about publishing. Because there was an easier place to find you know the vision and this the intention behind the work so if you are if you are a publisher you say I publish this work because it serves a certain whatever political ideology I have type of work I want to I want to have a good response for, and then by doing that I actually select type of designer that was going to work with me so then you have the kind of complete story. But if you take it just by looking at the images, like at the covers, you could be very, and then then even like organizing that material is even more difficult. Of course we are designers you and I so I mean I started by just picking the books I liked, because I thought, let's start with what attracts me first, you know, and that's, you know, and that's very valid actually I don't think it's a bad idea at all. I think it's a really good way to, you know, go to books book, like secondhand bookstores, whatever you can find libraries whatever and pick the things that you like as a starting point. So if you can start to be a bit more intellectual about and say why do I pick this what does it look like you know what is the content you know I was looking at the book before reading it. Now as a book designer was read the book before I design it so it's very interesting to say can I guess what what this book is about by looking at it and if it's a good design in principle yes, if it's not a good design probably not. It's a very interesting, you know, process to go through and then, you know what you said like about you know the fact that there were no archives that are really serious or accessible. And, and that you can come to you know public libraries are not so so prevalent in the Middle East, so you always have libraries that are connected to institutions and if you're not part of this institution is very difficult to get in so you have to find some kind of way to get there. When we worked on some of these books for the design library we had, you know, I mean there are still books I would like to have in the library but I can't because the air does not give you access and and think they have the copyright which is very bizarre because you're not taking their copyright either way. And to convince people that this was a good idea to do is very difficult because nobody understands that you would go into creating something or publishing something that's not going to be any, then there's no profit attached to it there's no idea that everything that doesn't make money doesn't doesn't deserve to exist. And I feel that it's stronger in the Middle East, especially with the airs they think that they can sell this which is. I don't know maybe they can sell it to the British Library but maybe not, you know, I don't know. So there's always this this problem of, you know, of questions of trust that you can gain the trust that you have this access whether it's an existing archive that is private or personal or public, there's always this struggle to get there. So I don't know, you know, once you put it online I mean having access to making it available online should be. You should be thanked for that. I start by thanking you but every researcher probably would start thanking you but one thing that you should not be worried about is you know the authority and the power I mean, no matter what you do you will always have to have some authority otherwise what you do is not serious. I think. Yeah, of course. Of course I agree 100% and but but but it's, but I think this awareness of the power makes you look at the landscape in a slightly better, in a slightly better way and you understand that the inner workings or like the undermining sort of hidden maybe structures are going on there are not very obvious from the, you know, from the outside from the outside we seem like all this exclusive thing or like inaccessible thing but when you think about it. So that's an exercise of power and and I like the idea of questioning that power because once I have that power I want to be questioned as well I don't want to be, you know, because that puts you in always a state of trying to rethink, you know, that selection process I mean, for me, what I do is basically go through the books like that if they are on a shelf, but that's instance that like split second of a choice, or like which one to select and which one to take out from that from that shelf is an extremely important and extremely vital moment that save this book versus the one after or the one after you know what I'm what I mean. So like, I'm constantly aware of that power, and therefore I'm constantly aware, like reflective on my own selection process, and the team selection process, and I would also like like to invite other people to talk about the process, what do we want to have to still have in the future, what do we want to archive that's that should be a constant question I think we talked about this me and Hannah for a brief moment that this process of selection is very important to talk about. And that's why, when you have a private archive that, like that you're disconnected from that process of selection, altogether, then things are predecided for you, what to see and what not to see, because it's already in the archive, which has gone through this process of selection that you didn't really engage with. Right. So yeah, I mean, in that way, I think. Yeah. Thank you. Both. This is very interesting. I want to take one of the questions on the Q&A, and to give people the chance so Tareq Adili, I hope that was correct, asked you both, if you could speak about how the senses related to your respective projects at first glance. It seems like the visual text, like the visual or textual centered in your work, but he wonders if you engage with archives of sound or could speak to the haptic tactile element of typography. And there's a shorter question for Moe if you could reflect on the pitfalls of digital archiving, especially that private platforms like Instagram and I'm summarizing here have many problems have to do with data privacy. They're them being, you know, capitalist endeavors. This is not his words, but increase online surveillance, etc. Do you want to answer the first question? So yeah, I mean we don't really work with sound and that's exactly I mean that's like both the first question and the second question that's one of the pitfalls of the digital archive that there is a sense of there's the level of experiment experience reality that can only happen in the physical archive, and you can never really substitute that with the digital archive. And that's where we like our solution for that is maybe to connect it to a physical place from the website so that you can see where it is in the in the world and then if you really want to, because, again, this experientiality is very, very important. And it has it can you can develop in my opinion you can develop knowledge that is experiential experiential knowledge. And it's in a sort of unrealized kind of way. And it's very difficult for the digital archive to to imitate that or emulate. And so we don't, but generally we don't really work with sound, we do work with sound in the sense that if it's related to books so let's say if we are able to have an interview with the designer or their their family members, and we're doing that in some instances. Then we include that within the, the, the whole, you know, let's say page of the of this one book. So if you see the cover and then the back and then all of the stuff you can, in some instances and and that's because that's a ton of work to be able to provide that for everything that's for at least with our scale is almost impossible to, but you can always find like sound clips and and all the related instances connected to that cover and that artist or that author or that publishing house, everything will be combined together with the video and sound if possible. And, yeah, like the down the downfalls of the digital archive are too many to be honest, I mean, I mean, ideally we would have a mix or like, I would imagine a new form of archive that is a fusion of like, like a harmonious fusion of both digital and physical. In this case, we're trying to substitute something that doesn't necessarily exist in the in the reward or not accessible. So we're taking on the digital with its own sort of problem that we're trying to address them. And if we can, and, you know, as much as we possibly can financially as well it's very very difficult. If it's a self initiated project that is based on funding and these findings, they usually have limits of how much can you get. I mean, if you, if I have if I have all the funding that I would definitely build a physical archive that is that is accompanied with with a physical with a digital one. But Instagram isn't your prime. You will be shifting to a website and away from this. Yeah, yeah. So, as I said before, we're working on the the website so that it can be available in a digital format but but also definitely not as a social media page. One thing I would like to say is answer to tactics. Of course, when you are printing a book, you are actually making a physical thing and we are very keen on making books that have a good quality paper, good feeling. You know, when you open it it opens nicely the images are really good. We work a lot on these images because sometimes you know archival material is kind of like if you are digitizing book cover then it's been, you know, gone through so much so the color is not the original color it has gone through time it's good. So we try to kind of bring back the beauty that it was originally and rather than trying to show it in its kind of worn outside. So for us, like the physical part is in this is, you know, it's totally linked to the book to the actual physical books and I think that, you know, I personally not because I like to make books and I like books but also because I feel that when we decided to print to print really print and not not produce digital versions of our books or audio books or all that such things because we, I feel that there's something there's longevity with with with the printed material that it stays beyond us that we die and the books will stay in the library and then somebody will inherit them they were going to another library or another archive or they exist and I think that that's important for certain kind of publications like maybe it's not necessary for every kind of publication but certainly for books that you want to preserve things with. So I feel that some of the stuff you know my fear is that you know with things that are digital that you know somebody pulls the plug, you know, Instagram tomorrow decides to close and shut down everything and everybody that has put their stuff there. It disappears, or it becomes worse the belonging of Instagram and Facebook, which is not yours anymore so it's kind of like, there is something about the, the, you know, the fact that sometimes you're like, I look back at things that I've done research on and I have online sources I try to find them again they don't exist they disappeared, you know, whereas if I go in the library I can still find a magazine or newspaper from like the 1900s. So there is something in the physicality of things, of course everything can disappear eventually but it has certainly more longevity than, than, than, than digital material and that's why I think like for publications that you want to produce that you have to be intently wanting it to be for a very long period, to exist for a very long period, the choice of print is still stronger for it makes more sense and the tactility and like that it's well made that it actually survives the time is also important. I hope I answered the question and so am I. So digital preservation that's something that I've also come across and I think Hannah could correct me on that. There's a, there's a, there's a time that you know that the digital format is supposed to live for right which is I don't know like 30, 30, 40 years right. That's like the agreed upon. Yeah I mean, like they're estimating it in that way but like I hope that you know in these 30 maybe 40 years, then the material in the archive can turn into books, and then they can live on. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well I think we're going to wrap up that it's been a really interesting discussion. Thank you for the thank you Moe. And just reflecting actually from my point of view as a librarian who deals with physical books I have one of the physical books in front of me. Yeah, which is beautiful which I'm using like the research something but I'm writing at the moment but equally. I'm every day using the Arabic book cover archive because librarians simply haven't recorded the kind of details in catalog records of illustrators book cover designers. It's kind of for me filling a gap and it's something that I can actually use in my work so it's, it's interesting to see these two projects and how they can be beneficial to librarians archivists, but also kind of a general research public or just a kind of casual person who just wants to actually to kind of pleasure or nostalgia to actually see some of these images and to repost them and to, you know, share them with friends. So yeah, I really appreciate both projects for being great. Thank you very much. So I'm just going to remind our audience about our next book which is on the 25th of May. So that's going to be focusing on visualizing the archive Arabic publishing during the Cold War. So it's going to look at kind of Cold War Arabic publishing to perspectives from the kind of the academic research of Zayna Maasri on her recent book, which I also have in front of me. Cosmopolitan radicalism the visual politics of various global sixties, but also from the perspective of the kind of artistic collective based in Berlin, there are publishing practices, and on their project borrowed faces. So there's more information in the link and registration that Hannah posted, and that event is going to be partnered with the Delfina Foundation, and also the Middle East History Group. Thank you everyone. And thank you again to more. And thank you. Thank you for having us. Pleasure to be here. Thank you. Thank you for the listeners also, and the good questions. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you then. Thank you, Anna. Bye. Bye.