leobidani.com

currently studying graphic design
at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie
leobidani@proton.me
+33 7 61 51 44 28

express in a thin and colorful way

missing structural elements
the device may be in A3 I think, so A4 metal plate and A4 papers
because maybe, A1 is too big????
Hello, Missing Structural Elements is a visual device that highlights essays and graphic experiments revolving around the idea of structure. What is structure? I’m interested in the grid in graphic design — but also in what it represents politically. Where does it come from? I learned during my theory class with Zachary that the grid is something immutable. It is imperialist and was created for capitalist purposes — to commercialize plots of land (“Jeffersonian Grid,” Designing History. Documents and the Design Imperative to Immutability, Chris Lee). Anyway, I learned quite a lot about this grid, but I only really began to take an interest in it after discovering why I ended up growing up in Longwy, in the northeast of France. Both my grandfathers — one from southern Tunisia and the other from northern Italy — came to work in that huge steel factory. I recently understood why I’ve always felt a certain absence — a lack of so many “Structural Elements” related to my two cultures. I realized that all these “Structural Elements” had been erased. The Longwy steelworks was erased from the face of the earth. I’ve never seen its remains; the few traces left have been hidden, and the stories silenced. As I continue through life as someone deprived of “structural elements” — of culture, of meaning — I’ve turned to drawing more intensely, as if it allowed me to create some of those missing “structural elements.” I need to look more deeply into the term structural, because I don’t think I’m misusing it. This text is an essay accompanying a piece I’m currently developing — a device of the in-between, showing both a structure and something missing.