Breaking Stereotypes with Ghalia Elsrakbi

In this podcast, Ghalia will talk about how she is creating a platform for the under-represented narratives in the design world in her region, the Middle East and how she is keen on breaking design stereotypes. How can color be used as a tool to surpass digital censorship so designers may speak up and communicate what they stand for? 

Ghalia Elsrakbi is a design professional, researcher, and design educator. After obtaining her a Master's degree in Design at the Sandberg Institute, Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, she joined the post-academic interdisciplinary program " Design Negation" at Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. Her research was dedicated to the investigation of populist politics from the perspective of design and theory.

In 2009, she co-founded with South African designer Lauren Alexander Foundland Collective, an art and design practice based between Cairo and Amsterdam. Foundland’s projects explore under-represented political and historical narratives by working with archives via art, design, writing, educational formats, video making, and storytelling. It aims to critically reflect upon what it means to produce politically engaged work from the position of non-Western artists working between Europe and the Middle East.

Ghalia is an Associate Professor of Practice in Design at the Graphic Design program at the American University in Cairo. She is a co-founder and the Artistic Director of Cairotronica, Electronic and New Media arts festival in Cairo.

Ghalia received a nomination and was a finalist for the Dutch Prix de Rome prize in 2015 and the Dutch Design Awards in 2016. She was awarded the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship in 2015/2016 for research in the Faris and Yamna Naff Arab American Collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington DC.

Ghalia has lectured and exhibited widely in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East, including Centre Pompidou (FR), The Rotterdam International Film Festival(NL), ISPC (NYC), Ars Electronica, Linz (AT), IMPAKT Festival (NL), London Art Fair (UK), Beursschouwburg, Brussels, Fikra Design Biennial (UAE), Porto Design Biennial (PT), Amman Design week (JOR).

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Transcript

Judith van Vliet: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Color Authority podcast. We are staying in Africa. As you know, the first podcast of 2024 was with Laura in Zimbabwe. And today I'm going to be talking to Ghalia Elsrakbi, who is going to podcast with us out of Cairo now. Ghalia is a design professional and researcher. She's an associate professor of practice and design at the graphic design program at the American University in Cairo. She's co founder of Fountain Collective, an art and design research practice based between Cairo and Amsterdam. She's co founder of the artistic director of Cairotronica Electronic and New Media Arts Festival in Cairo. She was also finalist for the Dutch Pride Rom Prize in 2015 and the Dutch Design Awards in 16. She was awarded the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship in 2016 for research at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. She has lectured and exhibited widely in Europe, the US, and the Middle east, including in a Santo Pompidou, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, ISPC in New York, London Art Fair, and Porto Design and of course, Amman Design Week. Let's hear Ghalia and see what her perspective is and all these stereotypes that she wishes to break in the region. Good afternoon, Ghalia, and welcome to the Color Authority podcast. How are you today?

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Hello, Jude. All is good. I'm so excited to be part of this podcast. Of course, we talked a lot about it and I'm curious about how this conversation where it could take us.

Judith van Vliet: Normally when I have these podcasts, I prepare and then the conversation just takes a whole new journey. So I'm excited as well.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Yes, and welcome to Cairo. My office is in the middle of the malik, so knowing the light, good that we have this opportunity to visit each other, even virtually, it's a blessing.

Judith van Vliet: We met last year when I spoke at the university, where you are also a professor at the American University of Cairo. And I've never been in Cairo. And I remember in the evening we met and I was so surprised by the Sounds, the smells, the absence of colors. But then you told me that indeed, when you go out, because I went to the pyramids the day after and you told me, but on the highway, look at the buildings that obviously are being constructed or taking down or they're being rebuilt, and then you see a lot of color. And that was such good advice because Cairo per se is not very colorful until you get on the highway and then you see people's inner homes are super colorful, but really very colorful. Much more than here in Europe, to be honest.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Yes, true. I think also the environment around, you know, the building environment, climate, it's a desert, so colors are very bright, and the sun is very strong. So to maintain colors, bright colors is a problem always. So there are colors, but they are faded. And usually you find colors when you observe people, like how they dress up, as you said, inside of their houses, little details, but not in a built environment. Color is much, much less. So you see stones and cement bridges, but also if you go outside big cities, you find nature and water and beautiful landscapes. So color is there, but you need to look for it.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, that's something that really surprised me. But I think it was good when you told me about the highways because I took pictures, and finally I got my color input. So I normally start this conversation with the same question. It's been five seasons, and I'm really looking forward to your answer. And that is, what is color to you, Ghalia?

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Well, I'm a designer, so color is very important, how to say, elements in my work. And I can also describe my journey with color because I come from a middle eastern background. I grew up in Damascus, Syria, and I moved to the Netherlands. So also my perception of color and music. Color changed through my, you know, color is association. I like stories about color. I'm very interested in untold stories about color. But certainly I'm someone who like bright colors, some colors. You can see it also in my work, design work, I think also colors has to do with bravery, choosing a brave combination of color, it's very daring. So I like to change, to challenge myself, that aspect as a designer.

Judith van Vliet: So people just obviously heard your bio. You have so many professional hats that when I was preparing my talking points, I was like, where do I start to make questions for this power woman? You are a design advocate. So when I look at your bio and what I see that your projects that you've been doing over the last couple of years is that it seems that you're a design advocate for the underrepresented in this world. Obviously, no matter where we live, we live in a very western point of view world, especially also still in indesign. Can you explain the audience, what it is that you do for this underrepresented world?

Ghalia Elsrakbi: What I mean with underrepresented, for me, it's a kind of underrepresented narratives. So we need to acknowledge that there is a domination of specific narratives around specific cultures, communities, part of histories. So I think from my position as someone coming from the Middle east and lived in Europe for a long time, I was interested in trying to design counter narratives. Or I'm interested in shedding light on those unrepresented narratives, also as an attempt to. Not to change perspectives on them, but also to broaden the perspective. There are different ways and there are different positions to each story. So I'm always interested in challenging myself to find those positions and represent them. And also I managed to surround myself with people who are believing the same way. For example, found life collective. Me and Lauren Alexander. She's a designer and artist as well, from South Africa. So when we met, we both shared this kind of vision or position that we need to talk about stats because we know more and it's a shared responsibility as well towards our communities and our audience to work with these topics. So this is what we are trying to do, curating our own souls, not only designing the soul, see things that usually hidden and we have the ability to communicate them. So we started this kind of journey of involving more research, more writing, investigative work, we call it sometimes to find new stories and new kind of interesting projects that will change the discourse around the topics that we're talking about, but also change the position of design in general.

Judith van Vliet: Where does this passion come from? Did it come from you moving around a lot? Did it come for you? Being a designer? Is it something that even when you were a little girl, you were already very passionate about connecting life, society, economics, politics, to design?

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Of course, living in different places and experiencing yourself in different kind of environment changes the way how you see things. So for sure, my interest in politics changed when I moved to the Netherlands. I grew up in the Middle east, where of course we have a lot of censorship around specific issues. In the Netherlands, there is more space to talk about things and more also room to question things, for example. But also you face a lot of stereotype stereotyping around specific topics. So you think like, oh, maybe I can change something there. But also as a Middle eastern woman, storytelling is a natural thing. We like to talk, we like to communicate, we like to bring personal experiences in our work, emotions, many things. So it's the combination of both. And I think nowadays if I talk about how design practice changed through maybe in the last ten years or 15 years, I see like amazing possibilities. And I keep telling my students, you can work anywhere you are educated to tell stories, find also or identify important stories and communicate that. So that could be if you're working with specific brands or commercial kind of sphere, or even if you're working with an ngo, or even if you will change your field, if you are a chef or you decided to be a writer or even teacher. So I think design is a tool to be a better communicator, whatever you choose to take your future career to.

Judith van Vliet: So when you talk about stereotypes, I mean, I can think of the stereotypes, obviously, that people confront you with, but what are the typical stereotypes that you come across? And do you see a change over the last couple of years since you are working on also breaking those stereotypes?

Ghalia Elsrakbi: I think I can say that I don't want to talk about so much politics, but even if I'm talking about design and design landscape, it was very kind of Europe centered, western centered, like what design is and what design mean, and also as a practice. But I think it's not like you can find design in our culture as also in ancient times. If you visit Luxor, for example, or even the pyramids, you see those beautiful, like with the hieroglyphs. For me, this is informational design. This is a very sophisticated way to summarize an experience or a lifetime using pictograms, very efficient in using color and symbolism, for example. So it's the way, how you approach it, the way how you look at it, even using design elements like grid and typography, it exists also in our culture, but it wasn't presented as such. It wasn't presented as part of the global design.

Judith van Vliet: There was no platform.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Yes, exactly. And I think this is why I like my job now, because we try so much in design education here in the region to change that, to bring new resources, new references that will enable future design to be more like, speaks about them and about their culture, more than adapting to new or important design understanding or new understanding of design. So we are trying to embrace that with keeping, of course, the resources that we all shared. But we need to have a voice in that, and this is what we try to do here. So I start to involve more about writing, about design and vision, about the meaning of design in our community, and how we can use design to improve our life, our culture, our choices. This is a bit where I am at the moment.

Judith van Vliet: What role do you think that design plays still also the current happenings in the world, no matter where you are in the world, but also how this reflects on color. Like, how do you think that working with and supporting what we call the underrepresented in the world in design, what role can color play in this, do you think? Because even just yesterday I was at Arco, so it's the Madrid Art fair, and there was this exhibition about the portuguese resistance. Obviously, many years ago, everything was red. Well, now obviously, red has a very significant protest color in Europe. It has a completely different meaning when we look at politics, especially in the United States currently. And again, it's very different in the United Kingdom. So there is color. When we talk about art, when we talk about design, what is your point of view in what you do and with the people you work with and how color is represented in that way?

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Yeah. So show color is part of, say, like the resistance sometimes. It's also surprising what color can bring or what kind of messages color can break. I can give you a really simple example. Like, more than ten years ago, when the Syrian uprising started, people were, of course, dealing with a lot of censorship in public space, but they failed to communicate the amount of violence and also the amount of grief that they were facing daily. So suddenly, most of the people started with the Syrian flag, of course flags, and they really immediately show identification with specific national meanings. But what was surprising is, so the Syrian flag is red, black, white in the middle and two stars. But then they start changing the equation of each color according to what's happening. So if there is more violence in the street, the red come more than the black or the green. And when the more grief or there is a lot of people died, you see the black is taking over. So I kind of, like, collected those flags through a period of time, and suddenly you see the color go in a very good formation, showing and reflecting what was happening at that time without any words. But every serial person at that moment was knowing what this wave of color change meaning or means at that time. So people found a way to communicate what they feel, where they stand politically, changing the equation of the flag colors. And I find it very beautiful example also because, you know, the meaning of each color in the flag and also drawing references to history. So it says more than just a color.

Judith van Vliet: What are the meanings of the colors of the Syrian flag? I don't think a lot of people.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Know that Kuwait is linked to the martyry blood. So it referred to period in history we fought for against colonialism. Lack has to do with receipts like the bassy period. And then suddenly, group of people or activists started to use another flag where the equation also were different. And you see, until now, a lot of people fast at this moment in time, because we are still divided. So I find it really beautiful that colors. Do moments in history that we need to know about refer to also the significance of this color specific culture? Yeah, I find it very interesting. And then I become more interested about stories of color, and they're linked to colonialism. And I try to bring this into my classes. My students understand that. But, for example, I give an assignment where they need to investigate history of color in relation to where they live. And many interesting stories came out. And then you can't look to colors the same way. So, for example, yellow, I don't know if you are aware of.

Judith van Vliet: No, I don't.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: British tourists, I think it's in the time where Egypt was under the British mandate, and many British groups, tourists different. They would come and visit pyramids and culture, and they would smuggle mummies to Europe. So they like to collect them, smuggle them, and they would organize party to attack the mummy. Yeah, this is not allowed anymore, of course, long time ago. But it was very fascinating that finished what was happening with the remains of the mummy. This powder, like the body remains and one of the applied or purposes, they will use it as pigment to create a shade of color that called mummy yellow. So that was very interesting. It was very interesting also for my students to know about that. Yeah, we try to shed light on those stories. Of course, the indigo blue and its relation to colonising the world, also how this indigo affected other industries and also agriculture, like the cotton, because the cotton is easier to dye than wool. So it's also linked to all these kind of important moments in history that shaped the world and also part of where we find ourselves now. So, for me, colors always lead to these stories, and I love to investigate them.

Judith van Vliet: I think color stories, a lot of people often know where pigments come from, like indigo. The name in Greek already says it comes from India, which obviously came to the rest of the world. Indeed, as you said, through colonisation, traveling, depending where you are born in the world, how you call it, obviously, how color has traveled throughout the world and what the history of that is. And I think that makes, I think, color so interesting. It always has a story, whether it's the old story or the new story that you built on it in a product, in a service or part. Also, what you do, obviously, with your graphic work, creating narratives through graphic work, how do you see that designers of today are using their resistance, their protest to whatever is happening in the world? How are they using this in their design form? I know you work a lot with graphics, cartoons. What do you see as, let's say, the latest trends in this area?

Ghalia Elsrakbi: I think if I can talk about the current moment, I think designers in the region here trying to use design to navigate through different challenges. Censorship, for example, for example, with what's happening now in Palestine, suddenly the watermelon become a symbol of the Palestinian resistance, because it has the same color as the Palestinian flag, because it was forbidden to wear the flag or to evolve the flag. So we always find intelligent way. And this is what I tell my students. We, as designer, have maybe a different role and a different position than an activist or a writer. So we need to also use this as a way to, how to say, trick power or outnumber all these kind of strategies to silence us. I think we are succeeding in that. And I think this is the intelligence of design, because you could use simple things to make your message come across, and a very powerful message without using so much words. And this is, I think, what interests me. It's become more difficult and difficult to navigate public space, for example. So how can we use other spheres like social media? Now social media also become kind of another censored public space. So I think designers have the ability to speculate, reimagine new possibilities, new narratives, kind of be visionary to the existing market, even leaders. So I'm very optimistic about the role of design, and I think we are on track. It's slowly, but we are on the.

Judith van Vliet: Right way, I think. Well, besides, the first thing, in my opinion, is change comes from the people. Always. It never comes from governments, it never comes from companies and organization. It comes from the people. And I think this is a very clear moment, again, because history repeats in positive and negative ways. I think, again, it's very much a people movement. And I think also color, not just graphic and cartoons, obviously have a way to play with color. Like yesterday, I was here in Madrid in Spain, and I bought a new pair of sneakers. And the moment the guy said, these colors of the sneaker produced in Spain are inspired by the watermelon, I just like, okay, they're mine. I'm having them because just through color, whether people are going to understand it, yes. Or not. When you wear them or when they see the combination of colors, it is your way to use color to make a statement or to bring awareness, just like what you are doing. And I think also what the current movement is doing is to bring awareness to what I hope is an awakening.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Yes, this is the only thing we can do, but also we have a very important role in. I will give you an example. I gave a workshop when this current event started to design something in solidarity with Palestine. And many young students asked me about the importance of what you're like. It's not going to change anything. We feel powerless, hopeless. So what can a poster do? We are not going to change the world. And my answer to them was, it's a very good question. Of course, my answer to them was, maybe what you are doing now is not going to change something now, but it will have a significant. And I presented a small presentation about the relation between design and the Palestinian resistance. Fifty s and how many designers at that time joined this post, even commissioned or volunteer. And their role was so important to accumulate and to strengthen the visual identity of the resistance. To repeat and design new symbols, or maybe reuse old symbols and put them in a new context. So the resistance have become like known, the visuals become aligned with their goals and their strategies. And look at them now. If we look about the history of Palestinian resistance, and we look at the collection and archives of posters, pamphlets, even movies, this is what remains. So it's very important, 30 years later, 50 years later, 70 years later, to come back to this archive and see what was happening at that moment time. Of course, you could read names of people. It's a documentation. You can find people who are involved. You can find important events that at that moment were important to celebrate or statement about. Also you can see line, trend that was linked to resistance. So we can use it now and connect ourselves to generation of pioneer designers that they were working at that time. So we need to stop looking at the impact of what we are doing today and start looking at it from a broader, maybe 50 years or 100 years. What we are doing now will mean in the future. So for me that's very important. And for them, it resonated because they could see us now. They know about what happened 50 years ago. Augmenting curating exhibitions, designing symbols that we still use and seed until today. So for sure, we have a very important role.

Judith van Vliet: No, I think that is something that a lot of people are not aware of. How important this is going to bring along change over the next decades, perhaps not now. Indeed. I find it also interesting, your work with the fountain collective that you said that you have with your South African partner, where you work, indeed, with artists and designers, of course, that work in the west. But what they need to reflect on. So perhaps these are people that were not born in Europe, not born in, let's say, what we call the west today, let's say, the global north, but that were born in the global south. What do we need to think about when they want to make art and design that is, let's say, sellable to the west? And I think this is exactly the key of what we're living today. How can we make something inclusive? How can we make design understandable for a broader audience?

Ghalia Elsrakbi: This is very challenging question, but I think designers need to be. They need to be more aware of what's really happening globally. They need to be active. They need to be an active citizen as well. Not just isolating themselves from what's happening around them, but also they need to be clear about what they want to communicate. What kind of story? Exactly. So I see each product they design, if it's a small poster or if it's a piece of furniture or packaging for a product, they need to delve into the target audience that they are designing for and what is the expectation of this product. And I think they need also to resist some, how to say, rules that the market really imply sometimes on us because of the market's idea about selling and making quick profits. It's very difficult for some designer to navigate, especially young one, because in a way, you need to work, you need to make a living. So this is why I believe we need to organize ourselves. We need to be involved in education more. I think we need to help the market that is not ready. Sometimes I feel that the market is not ready for these new challenges, to collaborate together and think about what kind of future we want, what kind of new products we want. It's time to think about sustainability. It's time to think about less consumerism. It's time to think about, yes, maybe in the future we will buy less and have more sustainable life. We need to also consider health issues. We can't keep going the way we live at the moment. And I think we try. This is why I'm involved in education. We try to educate young designers and kind of equip them with tools to convince communities that this change is necessary for their own benefit. We are not anymore a tool to make things look flashier or more beautiful for the purpose of selling. This is why it's important also to engage more in conversations, not to isolate ourselves. I think the change is happening. I think also if you think about consumers, they're really aware and they're really going beyond old strategies of design and advertising. And now you see this boycott movement happening all over the world is really happening because its consumers or people are aware of the ramification of their participation in this kind of cycle. And it doesn't matter how much they like a product, but they're aware of how to say the story of this product and its connection to awful things happening in the book. So I think it's hopeful that this will bring, it's starting to change, but we need to keep pushing. We need to resist.

Judith van Vliet: I think that's why your work with students is so important, especially in your region, of course, to work with students and make them understand, first of all, not just their point of view, whether they are from Cairo, whether they are from Egypt, whether they are middle eastern, many Americans that obviously also come and study in Cairo, just generally, we are one people, we are one world, and there's only one. So this is the.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Yeah, yeah, it is the moment. And I think by engaging ourselves even and also collaborating with entities that we think they don't share our own belief it's going to bring change because we are claiming our position, we are asking the right questions, we are pushing them to change as well. But when we leave or when we decide not to participate, we lose on the lockdown. So it's about working harder to engage. So I encourage students to work in advertising agencies, to also discover for themselves how they can make it better, because they will be in direct conversation with clients, they will be in direct conversation with established professionals, and they are very smart and very aware and they are the future. So they need to find their place and they need to resist as well, smartly.

Judith van Vliet: That's true. I think, when you then come in, because obviously they come in touch with corporates, corporates that have done things for decades the way that they have done them. And not just that. I think as a student, it is very easy sometimes to have this beautiful vision of who you are, what you want to be as a designer, and then you meet the real world. And then there is normally a big gap. There's a big gap to what is the consumer market, to what obviously the company that you're working with or for your client, what they want. And that very often clashes with what you were brought up with, with your education and with many ideals that are sometimes very difficult to maintain. And I think this younger generation, however, is keeping more. They're holding on to their values a lot more than previous generations and they're not letting go. And I think that is a beautiful movement that we are seeing because they are obviously part of the workforce already and that's only going to be increasing.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Yes, I totally agree. And I think also they are different than us. I think they grew up also in. They're brave, for sure. They grew up also. For example, I take example of COVID Covid hit for many young people that was really like that. They consider significance. It changes the way how they perceive the world in a moment where they want to be outside, exploring, traveling, they experience that they were trapped inside. They can't move easily. They cannot have interaction easily with other people, physically as well. And it was a moment for them of reflection to understand that this kind of events will recur more in the future, and it's their future. So what are they going to do about it? So they are worried and concerned. So I'm hopeful that they will. And also, they were willing to organize themselves. They have the energy to do that. They understand their responsibility in that, hopefully, we're trying to. And, of course, the role of design there is very important. I asked them once to imagine a future scenario. They need to design a guide. You give them the opportunity to investigate present and how the present is going to affect the future, and what can they do about that? So I think they're ready for this challenge. And I think also it's starting to understand that they need to change as well. I'm not sure about how this influences color.

Judith van Vliet: I was just about to ask you, when they make the survival guides. So you've seen some survival guides, right? So these survival guides that you just said that these students made, what are prominent colors that they use? If they use color, maybe they don't use color.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: It depends on the subject. So, for example, I had a student that she was convinced that the future of humanity, like humans, that would need to leave Earth one day and travel to Mars. And then she imagine the landscape she needs to draw, like humans living or living in Mars and what kind of challenges? And then also imagine that earth become a place that it's very difficult for us to inhabit anymore. And, of course, color is very important because you see the earth becoming more yellow, and Mars is kind of becoming more green. They use color to communicate a few things. They do also use bright color as a kind of an alarming colors. They want things to be clear, like bright yellow, bright red, or really bright pink. So, yes, for them, the idea of survival was linked to a lot of.

Judith van Vliet: Bright, strong color, like action colors, like alert, like emergency.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Yes. And a lot of contrast as well. Yeah. Most of the scenarios were also, like, dark. I was also surprised, and we had also this conversation about the power of imagination, that maybe we also need to change that, start to imagine good scenarios. Otherwise they will not happen. And also that also changed the way how they perceive the future as well, that we need to find a way out somehow, and we will find a way out. Like, if you look back in history, we always did without compromises, and we need to acknowledge what are. So it was a kind of way also to make them think that they have a role to change the future, and they have a role to educate the public about the future and about what's going to happen, using their skills to speculate and to provide solutions that maybe at this moment are not feasible for many reason, but they are ways, and we need to invest more in them.

Judith van Vliet: Well, talking about color symbolism, because they use dark, because they don't see a bright future, they use very bright colors to wake up people like, hey, this is the last call. You guys need to wake up. But when you look at yourself and obviously the journey that you have made, born in Syria, lived in the Netherlands, now you live in Egypt, you've traveled the whole world. I mean, you've exhibited also over the whole world. How would you think color symbolism is so different, especially from where you grew up and then where you mainly have been working, which also, of course, you started in the Netherlands. What are those main color symbolisms that are really, according to you, interesting to talk about to the audience?

Ghalia Elsrakbi: I'm not sure if in my design work I'm really colorful. It's become a style as well. But with my installations, I think color is more subtle sometimes. Also in some projects there is a lack of color, because lack of color. So color is a bit almost. We have an installation, me and Lauren, we did for three dome. It was almost gray. There is no significant color. And I think sometimes lack of color is just like, for me, a moment of trying to create this space where you don't identify with it and you don't identify with symbol.

Judith van Vliet: Color can be distracting as well. It distracts when something is red blue or yellow green.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Yes, you are tracked by the color.

Judith van Vliet: But perhaps not the texture or the material.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Exactly. I think now there is more, for sure, more interest in material and texture, more than color per se. But for example, in a city like Cairo, I always advise my students to use color, bright color, because you really need to stand out in all these kind of hectic environments. So color can be a way to get an attention or trying to grab an attention, but also it can be the opposite. Like, I remember me and Lauren once, we worked on a project in the Netherlands during the election time. So we were commissioned to work to produce a campaign about equality in the Netherlands. And when it comes to color, it was really difficult to pick a color. And in the end, we like with the environment full of election posters screaming of color and also the meaning of each color, that it's connected to right wings or the leftist parties and all of this. So we decided that the campaign is going to be black and white because that was the only solution to stand out. So of course black is a color too. White is a color. But I mean, they were neutral, the neutral choice at that moment compared to what's really happening around it. So I think when it comes to choosing color, you need to be very strategic. You need to also to consider the environment, where this work will stand, how you are going to see it, who is going to see it. And also, I think in my work in particular, I like not to be direct and I like to puzzle the audience sometimes I like to add some surprises to trick the audience because this is sometimes the only way to stop. Because we need to also acknowledge that people now see a lot they consume. So it's not about creating something appealing, beautiful, moving, whatever. It's just about something that break their rhythm and make them stand for a moment and think about it. How to use that color for sure, is one of them, one of those strategies, yeah.

Judith van Vliet: I think color has a very powerful way to communicate, or sometimes not to communicate, just like what you did with the black and white when you were indeed doing a campaign in the Netherlands during election time, which is always a crazy time because everybody is asking for attention. It's interesting how color can work that way, but also the deeper meaning of color and the meaning it has in different countries. I think that's the most interesting thing, that one color has a different meaning in one country and in one region than the other. I think that is the biggest learning point. When you are a designer, you need to be aware of certain cultural colors as well, political colors, cultural colors, religious colors. And I think that is especially a study on its own when it comes to color, when you are designing for a global world, of course, yes.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: And I think also it's a matter of taste as well. Sometimes when you understand the reason about specific how the material you're using. For example, for example, when we talk about textile and dyeing textile and sustainable way to dye textile, of course the colors are not going to remain bright all the time because the technology used are not advanced yet to fix the color. But we believe it's better for the environment, so we need to adapt to it. So maybe in the future, like fading colors, they will become more popular, you know what I mean? I think it's way how you perceive things. We will be wearing maybe more white because dyeing would be like dying colors would be too expensive or too harmful. We are going to play a role in that, like how we promote those kind of things and those kind of practices and also embrace them instead of reject them, because our belief that we believe that now it's more trendy to have brighter color. So I think we have a role in that to prepare the public and to prepare communities to adapt to that.

Judith van Vliet: I fully agree. I think natural pigments of colors are coming back. And obviously, when you work with natural pigments, it means that the color will change over time, because it doesn't fix the same way to a fiber than a synthetic pigment, of course, does. It will take a while before the world is completely ready. I think some markets already are, but obviously it's a complete change in the game of color. It's a game changer. And like everything in this world, everything takes time. What is next for you, Ghalia? What is like a project you're working on? Or maybe there's a future dream project that you like to work on.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: This is a very nice question. Well, I have a lot of ideas. Like a year ago, I started this collaboration with archives that exist here in Cairo. One of them is the archive of the american university where I work in an attempt to use design to reread and re girl's collections, also to discover new information also related to design and creative practices in the region. I would like so much to continue that, because I think in the region there is a lot to investigate and to research. So this is one project, like I started and I'm busy with, and I think I would be busy with like in the coming ten years also. Big project, very big project. I see potential of design and art direction as a way to produce knowledge about the creative and about the creative practices in the region in a very appealing and interesting way. Maybe it's not defined, but it's not big enough. We started it, and the results until now are very nice because I also use my classes and I involve students in that. So, yeah, this is where I'm busy. Maybe I would like also to share with you some of the research that students did about color history, because they magazines about that. So maybe also it's nice to share them with you and maybe also with the audience because there are some nice stories. So maybe I can make a collection and we can share it.

Judith van Vliet: Yes. The more color, I mean, color people generally are very insatiable. Like they always want more and more and more color information. So I think anything that is worth sharing on color and color stories, especially from different viewpoints, I think that really feeds to our imagination and of course to everybody's work and everybody's design of understanding more what is needed in the world of design.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Yes, totally agree.

Judith van Vliet: Talia, this has been a great way to talk to you. My mind is like bumbling. Like it's already thinking about next steps. And especially now that you shared that you want to share some color work of your students. Thank you so much for sharing your work and your viewpoints and being part of the color authority podcast.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: Thank you. Thank you for hosting me. As you said, I think there is a lot to discover about color understanding here in the region. We need to change this stereotype that Cairo is a very dull and colourless city. There is a lot to discover. I hope I delivered some interesting insights for the artists.

Judith van Vliet: You sure did. Thank you so much.

Ghalia Elsrakbi: You're welcome.

Judith van Vliet: I hope you enjoyed this last episode. If you are a fan of the Color Authority podcast, please let us know by reviewing and rating our show on whichever platform you're listening on. The next episode is coming out next month, and in the meantime, I'm wishing you a wonderful, colourful day.