When Dr. Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès moved from Beirut to study in the United States, she found herself doing something she'd never had to do before: explaining her own visual culture to people who'd never seen it. That challenge changed everything. It sent her deep into the history of Arabic typography—how it grew from calligraphic tradition, was codified by ninth-century philologists in Baghdad, and is now being reimagined through algorithms and animation. And it gave her a lifelong mission: to show the world a side of SWANA creative culture that rarely makes it into the conversation.
In this episode, host Mai Habib sits down with Dr. Smitshuijzen AbiFarès to go behind the scenes of her exhibition Inner Structures, Outer Rhythms, explore what makes Arabic letterforms so uniquely expressive, and make the case that contemporary graphic design from the SWANA region is one of the most direct living continuations of Islamic artistic heritage.
*The Museum wishes to thank Nadir and Shabin Mohamed for their founding support of This Being Human.*
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Key Moments
0:00 Introduction to This Being Human and the world of Arabic typography
1:20 Dr. Smitshuijzen AbiFarès' background and how studying abroad sparked her passion for typography
3:07 Defining typography, and how it differs from calligraphy and hand lettering
5:59 How the Arabic script connects cultures across the SWANA region and beyond
8:58 The Quran as connector: Arabic, Islam, and the preservation of a shared script
11:51 What makes Arabic letterforms uniquely readable across wildly different styles
13:36 Behind the scenes of Inner Structures, Outer Rhythms: vision, work, and journey
18:11 How the exhibition adapted to audiences in Qatar, Germany, and Toronto
21:10 Why sparking new conversations—not delivering answers—was the ultimate goal
27:55 The future of Arabic typography: algorithms, animation, and a script that endures