ARMED BY DESIGN with Lani Hanna and Selçuk Balamir
with co-editor Lani Hanna in conversation with Selçuk Balamir at 6.30pm
Thursday March 6, 6pm
Armed by Design reflects on the intersection of graphic design and political solidarity work in revolutionary Cuba through the lens of the production of OSPAAAL, the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
OSPAAAL developed out of the 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Havana, a meeting of delegates representing national liberation movements and leftist political parties almost exclusively from the Global South. Based in Havana, OSPAAAL produced nearly five hundred posters, magazines, and books beginning in the late 1960s, with most of their work ceasing by the late 1980s. Until 2019, OSPAAAL was a political organization focused on fighting US imperialism and supporting liberation movements around the world through poster production regularly produced publications, and a series of books featuring the writings of the intellectual leadership of these movements.
Armed By Design brings together artists and thinkers from around the world whose work has been impacted by the legacy of OSPAAAL. These contributions reflect on impacts of OSPAAAL’s work on regional movements, including in the Arab world and Korea, design iconography, the evolution of tricontinentalism, our present-day relationship to OSPAAAL posters as a commodity, and authorship and reproduction.
Lani Hanna’s research focuses on counter-institutional archives and political infrastructure, with a PhD in Feminist Studies at University from California Santa Cruz. Her most recent co-edited book with Interference Archive is on design and publishing called Armed by Design: Posters and Publications of the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America with Common Notions publishing January 2025. She has worked with Interference Archive in New York City on many publications and exhibitions, including Armed by Design and Take back the Fight: Resisting Sexual Violence from the Ground Up.
Selçuk Balamir is a designer, researcher and organiser working on just transition. He co-developed disobedient climate campaigns (Climate Games, Shell Must Fall) and co-initiated social housing cooperatives (NieuwLand, de Nieuwe Meent). His PhD in Cultural Analysis is on postcapitalist design and he’s currently doing a postdoc on repurposing fossil energy heritage in the just transition.