Work Work Work

<p>WORK WORK WORK, an Arabic, Urdu, and English book-object about the representation of migration in the Gulf.</p> <p>The book draws from <em>The Earth Speaks Urdu</em>, a play by Emirati writer and poet Ahmed Rashid Thani, staged in Sharjah and Al Ain in the 1980s, which satirized modernist relationships between Khaleeji Arabs and migrants from south and west asia.</p> <p>WORK WORK WORK is my own interpretive mutation of the contents of the play and the author, so as to complicate assumptions made by cultural workers and thinkers about Gulf society. Editorially, the book-object enhances personal and political ambitions to read, write and disseminate critical thought beyond the English language.</p> <p>Translated into Arabic and Urdu, the trilingual content then fed into the artistic direction and design collaboration of Mobius Design Studio who developed each language as an individual booklet with a self-assembly, interactive kick.</p> <p>Designed as an interactive book experience mimicking typewritten 1980s playscripts, with cut-outs, pop-up features and prompts for self-assembly. In complement to the ‘hyper objectification’ remit of this micro-facsimile press, they abstracted theater design sets as pop-out elements within pages of the book, alongside hand-written scripts in the three languages as typography.</p>