Marwan Kaabour
Takweer
Excavating and Reassembling Queer Arab Narratives
Panel: Resistance
The histories of queer people are often left unwritten, undocumented and unarchived. The deliberate omission of queer histories, risks the prospect of having these narratives misrepresented, or even completely lost. For too long, literature surrounding queerness in the Arab region was relegated to footnotes in research papers hidden behind paywalls, or as part of crass articles in Arab gossip magazines under the guise of “moral deviance”.
Artist and designer Marwan Kaabour decided to take matters into his own hands, when he created Takweer in 2019 as a space to explore, document and celebrate queer narratives in Arab history and popular culture.
Kaabour indiscriminately goes through Arab histories with a fine queer-comb in search of queer narratives. He then proceed to excavate these stories from their existing setting, in order to research and recontextualise them with a queer lens.
Takweer also acts as a springboard for more focused projects. The first realised project focuses on queer lexicon in Arabic dialects, which has been published as The Queer Arab Glossary earlier this year. The book is a comprehensive and illustrated study of the linguistic landscape around queerness in the Arabic-speaking region. This study helps inform our understanding of queerness within an Arab context, but also proposes itself as a challenge to the dominant Western queer discourse.
Marwan Kaabour is a graphic designer, artist and writer. His interdisciplinary practice builds pathways between communication and publication design, curation, pedagogy and political activism. Alongside his independent projects, he works with non-profit institutions, companies and individuals in arts and culture sectors. In 2019, Marwan founded Takweer, an online platform and expanding archive of queer narratives in Arab history and popular culture. His debut book, The Queer Arab Glossary, was published in June 2024.
Marwan moved from his hometown Beirut to London in 2011 to pursue a master's degree in Graphic Design from the London College of Communication, before joining renowned design agency Barnbrook. After more than six years of diverse experience with Barnbrook, first as Designer and later as Senior Designer, he founded his own studio in 2020.
His commissioned design work spans visual identities, publication and exhibition design, marketing campaigns, wayfinding systems and art direction, among others. He has worked with leading cultural institutions, including the V&A Museum, Phaidon, Art Basel, The National Gallery, Thames & Hudson, Serpentine Galleries, Hayward Gallery, Zaha Hadid Foundation and The Mosaic Rooms. He designed the Rihanna book, which was named as one of Time magazine's best photo books of 2019.