Alphabetica 2: Entering Otherworlds

Alphabetica II
Entering Otherwords
A symposium of visions, signs, and unseen worlds

With So-Hyun Bae, Tim Brookes, Hansje van Halem, Anushah Hossain, Franco Jonas, Sarojini Lewis, Marian Markelo, Nunzio Mazzaferro, Marianne Mispelaëre, Page Not Font, Ariq Syauqi, Emma Wiersma & Louwrien Wijers.

Moderated by Carina Fernandes

More info, program and biographies:
http://westdenhaag.nl/exhibitions/25_10_Alphabetica_Entering_Otherworlds/

Entering Otherworlds is the second edition of this symposium series Alphabetica, exploring design and writing systems through a wide lens of their formal, cultural, and imaginative dimensions. While the first edition in 2019 focused on historical, logical, and systematic perspectives — such as Unicode and design technology — this second chapter deliberately leaves logic and reason behind, opening space for worlds shaped by intuition, vision, and everything we cannot fully express in words.

Through contributions from experts in typography, philosophy, art, and design, the symposium invites audiences to step beyond the familiar and encounter new spiritual, cultural, and aesthetic practices. Presented in dialogue with the current Alphabetum exhibition Writing Systems of the Otherworld by Edgar Walthert and Tim Brookes — which surveys dream-inspired alphabets and visionary scripts of resistance and identity — Alphabetica 2 expands this theme into the wider field of human creativity, with a particular focus on visual art, design, and typography.

The symposium is part of Worlding Art, a four-year program at West Den Haag that investigates how art can generate new forms of relation, meaning, and society. Drawing from feminist and postcolonial thought, worlding in this context means both exploring the essence of art itself (worlding of art) and showing how art actively contributes to a more equitable and livable world (worlding through art). In this way, audiences are not just spectators but active participants in the artistic process.

The symposium is organised by the art institute West Den Haag in close collaboration with the Atelier National de Recherche Typographique (Nancy, FR), Hochschule Mainz (DE), and the Endangered Alphabets Project (USA). In addition to the publication Writing Systems of the Otherworld, a new companion booklet will be released in conjunction with this event.

Speakers

So-Hyun Bae is a Korean-French graphic designer and typographer. As she spent her childhood moving around between Korea, France and the United States, learning new languages were for her a way to survive in different environments. Eventually, these linguistic adaptations lead her to develop a deeper interest for languages. Realizing that typography is at the intersection of her interests for graphic design and languages, she creates her typeface Syllaba as her master’s graduation project at the Haute école des Arts du Rhin in Strasbourg. Between 2018 and 2020, she conducted research on multilingual design at the ANRT (Atelier National de Recherche Typographique, Nancy, France), focusing on her own trilingualism. Today, she is co-founder of the German-French design studio ÉTÉ and teaches at her alma mater in Strasbourg.

Tim Brookes is the founder of the Endangered Alphabets Project, an international initiative dedicated to preserving and revitalizing minority and Indigenous writing systems. As a writer and researcher, his work explores the cultural, ecological, and political dimensions of scripts, technology, and infrastructure, highlighting the vital link between language, identity, and community.

Carina Fernandes is a spoken word artist, singer-songwriter, host, and cultural organizer. She is a sparkling Renaissance woman whose creativity is a vehicle of revolution. With her mix of Soul, Funk and Her sound feels like the love child of Sade, Macy Gray with a touch of Prince. Intertwining heritage, social themes, vulnerability and soulful sounds - her music is perfect Thursday afternoon drinks or a Sunday with tea.

Hansje van Halem is a graphic designer, internationally recognized for her experimental typography and intricate digital patterns. Her work spans print, digital media, and architectural applications, exploring the boundaries between ornament, rhythm, and structure. With a strong focus on process and materiality, she creates visual systems that oscillate between strict frameworks and playful complexity. Van Halem’s distinctive designs have been commissioned by cultural institutions and public projects, and her practice has become a touchstone for contemporary explorations of type and pattern in design.

Anushah Hossain is Research Director of the Script Encoding Initiative (SEI), a project that prepares proposals for historic and minority scripts to be added to the Unicode Standard. Her work as a historian of the internet focuses on the development of text-technologies, script encoding, and the politics of language digitization.

Franco Jonas (Chile, 1995), Nunzio Mazzaferro (Italy, 1995) and Ariq Syauqi (Indonesia, 1994) are postgraduate student at ANRT in Nancy. All three are participating in The Missing Scripts, a research project conducted in partnership with Designlabor Gutenberg (Hochschule Mainz) and the Script Encoding Initiative(UC Berkeley).

Sarojini Lewis is an artist and researcher whose work interweaves film, photography and archival material from a decolonial perspective on memory, diaspora and oral history. Her current exhibition at West Den Haag, Labyrinth Within (co-curated with Razia Barsatie), invites audiences into an immersive site-specific installation exploring themes of intergenerational silence, migration, and cultural identity.

Marianne Markelo is a Surinamese-Dutch artist, cultural historian, and Winti priestess. Through her artistic and spiritual practice, she brings attention to Afro-Surinamese heritage, oral traditions, and the living presence of Winti culture in contemporary society. She is widely recognized for her contributions to strengthening cultural awareness and dialogue on spirituality, identity, and community.

Marianne Mispelaëre is a French visual artist working with drawing, performance, and research. Her practice addresses the social and political significance of gestures, language, and silence, exploring how communication and non-communication shape structures of power and community. Through subtle, often minimal interventions, she investigates the ways in which collective memory and identity are inscribed in everyday acts. Her work has been presented in exhibitions and contexts across Europe, reflecting a commitment to art as a space for critical reflection and shared experience.

Nunzio Mazzaferro (Italy, 1995), Franco Jonas (Chile, 1995) and Ariq Syauqi (Indonesia, 1994) are postgraduate student at ANRT in Nancy. All three are participating in The Missing Scripts, a research project conducted in partnership with Designlabor Gutenberg (Hochschule Mainz) and the Script Encoding Initiative(UC Berkeley).

Page Not Found is an artist-run space in The Hague dedicated to publishing as an artistic practice. Through exhibitions, lectures, and performances, it explores the intersections of art, publishing, and experimental forms of distribution. The program highlights both emerging and established practitioners, with a strong focus on critical discourse and independent publishing.

Ariq Syauqi (Indonesia, 1994), Franco Jonas (Chile, 1995) and Nunzio Mazzaferro (Italy, 1995) are postgraduate student at ANRT in Nancy. All three are participating in The Missing Scripts, a research project conducted in partnership with Designlabor Gutenberg (Hochschule Mainz) and the Script Encoding Initiative(UC Berkeley).

Emma Wiersma (1998) writes about art and as an art form. In her work, she explores the borderlands between memory, language, and materiality, intertwining and transforming them, while searching for poems in and beyond language. She also writes essays and reviews for literary and art publications such as Metropolis M, Mister Motley, Tubelight, and De Revisor.

Louwrien Wijers (Aalten, 1941) is visual artist and writer. Since the 1960s she has been working as Fluxus artist at the intersection of art, philosophy, and society. Her symposium Art meets Science and Spirituality in a changing Economy (Stedelijk Museum, 1990), featuring Robert Rauschenberg, David Bohm the Dalai Lama, John Cage, Ilya Prigogine, Raimon Panikkar among others, is considered a landmark in reflecting on the role of art in social transformation.