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, Anusha Hossain, Franco Jonas, Sarojini Lewis, Marian Markelo, Nunzio Mazzaferro, Marianne Mispelaëre, Ariq Syauqi & 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 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 type 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.