My Great Arab Melancholy is a beautiful, tragic and award-winning book from Lebanese writer and illustrator Lamia Ziadé. Blending the author’s years of research, personal memoir and more than 300 illustrations, this compelling history of the modern Arab world explores the major thinkers, struggles and turning points that have shaped the Middle East as we know it today.

Ziadé begins in South Lebanon, ‘land of martyrs, ruins and passion’, before taking the reader further afield, to Beirut, Jerusalem, Cairo and Baghdad. The book moves from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day, tracing the Arab world’s tragedies and the derailing of dreams and possibilities caused in large part by Western imperialism and the conquest of Palestine.

Within these pages there are the blasts of explosions, blood, tears and tragedy, cemeteries, wreaths and ribbons, martyrs and paradise. Ziadé unearths the buried memory of resistance fighters and their lost ideals. In haunting prose and unforgettable images she celebrates the progressive, bold, revolutionary moments and figures of the Arab world’s recent past.

Lamia Ziadé is a Lebanese author, illustrator and visual artist. Born in Beirut in 1968 and raised during the Lebanese Civil War, she moved to Paris at 18 to study graphic arts. She then worked as a designer for Jean-Paul Gaultier, exhibited her art in numerous galleries internationally, and went on to publish several illustrated books, including My Port of Beirut, Ma très grande mélancolie arabe which won the Prix France-Liban, Ô nuit, ô mes yeux and Bye bye Babylone.

Emma Ramadan is an educator and literary translator from French. She is the recipient of the PEN Translation Prize, the Albertine Prize, two NEA Fellowships, and a Fulbright. Her translations include A Country for Dying by Abdellah Taïa, Zabor, or the Psalms by Kamel Daoud, Panics by Barbara Molinard, and The Easy Life by Marguerite Duras.

Award-winning illustrated chronicle of the modern Arab world, combining travelogue, memoir, history and gorgeous full-colour art

Author: Lamia Ziadé

Publisher: Pluto Press

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with contributions by Jonas Delaborde, Leon Sadler, Tony Jeffrey (aka Tonetta), Hendrik Hegray, Guy Mercier, Jamie McNeill, Julien Carreyn, Denise Kupferschmidt, Jacques Noel, Lee Scratch Perry, Oblivia, Misha Hollenbach, Alexandre Jacquet, Spencer Clark, Dennis Tyfus, Melissa Brown, Captain Cavern, Brenna Murphy, Ju Suk Reet Meate, Heath Moerland, Jeff Hartford, Mathieu Malouf, Roope Eronen, Jarno Latva-Nikkola & Max Eisenberg

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“Putting aside momentarily the work and setting out to explore the curious world and the next path, I write down 50 wishes for the future me after the journey. Emptying the jealousy and the restless heart that have filled me during this time, I make a commitment by jotting down 50 items on my wishlist, ready to make room for new things.

As I write about what I need to let go of and what I want to embrace, I look forward to the stories that may unfold for me in the future, in whatever form they may come.”

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Togawa-shoten’s quarterly magazine Onnshinn has published artist submissions since 2011. Thank you all for your continued support. It is the newest issue #25.
It is because of you all that we are able to continue to uphold this magazine as an open forum of expression for everyone and everything.

Authors, Artists:
Yoshiko Adachi 
Joël Ameloot 
Mariko Mukumoto 
Ryo Nakamura 
Tatsuki Sako 
Yoshie Sugito 
Sota Togawa 
Design: Hirokazu Matsuda

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Reprtoire 8 zeigt berührende Fragmente aus Architektur und Kunst, Theorie und Realität, die ohne Hierarchie und Sortierung und vor allem ohne Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit assoziativ zu einer Sammlung gefügt sind. Die unendlich aufeinander verweisenden Bilder, Zeichnungen und Texte zeigen ein Formenrepertoire, das Grundlage ist für einen architektonischen Diskurs, der nicht mit der eigenen Problemlösung beginnt, sondern mit der Erschaffung eines Kenntniskosmos der Ideen.

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Heft 7 der Reihe Repertoire enthält Beobachtungen – Bilder, Zeichnungen und Texte von Häusern und Räumen – der in Berlin lebenden Architektin Oda Pälmke, die sich wie bei einem ­Entwurf gegenseitig ergänzen und zunehmend ineinander verweben. Es ist eine Einladung, die Autorin auf ihren Spaziergängen und Reisen in die Welt zu begleiten oder, vielleicht ebenso gut, die Publikation zum Anlass für eigene Explorationen zu nehmen.

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“Repertoire” shows a collection of drawings and photographs of common situations and elements of the built environment and may inspire the natural expansion of the design repertoire. 

Issue 7 of the Repertoire series contains observations – pictures, drawings and texts of houses and spaces – by the Berlin-based architect Oda Pälmke, which complement each other like a design and increasingly interweave. It is an invitation to accompany the author on her walks and trips around the world or, perhaps as well, to use the publication as an opportunity for her own explorations.

“Oda Pälmke’s way of working is characterized by the methodology of appropriation, the appropriation of found material. It is a strategy that allows a fruitful examination of the real. Casual and trivial, found and invented develop new levels of meaning through their specific way of working through. If everything can once again become “starting material for transformations”, everything can again become “raw material for productions”, says Peter Sloterdijk, there is no creative creation ex nihilo and the modern phantasm of tabula rasa is overcome. The creative process then consists in finding an attitude towards what has been found and developing a story from it. ”(Anh-Linh Ngo, publisher ARCH +)

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Repertoire zeigt eine Sammlung von Zeichnungen und Fotografien gewöhnlicher Situationen und Elemente der gebauten Umwelt und mag zur selbstverständlichen Erweiterung des entwerferischen Repertoires anregen.

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“Repertoire” shows a collection of drawings and photographs of common situations and elements of the built environment and may inspire the natural expansion of the design repertoire.

Repertoire 1 – GESTALT Häuser / FORM Houses
Repertoire 2 – STRUKTUR Oberflächen / STRUCTURE Surfaces
Repertoire 3 – STANDARD Badezimmer / STANDARD Bathrooms
Repertoire 4 – AUSSTATTUNG Mobiliar / EQUIPMENT Furniture
Repertoire 5 – ÜBERGANG Treppen / TRANSITION Stairs
Repertoire 6 – SITUATION Konstellationen / SITUATION Constellations

“Oda Pälmke’s way of working is characterized by the methodology of appropriation, the appropriation of found material. It is a strategy that allows a fruitful examination of the real. Casual and trivial, found and invented develop new levels of meaning through their specific way of working through. If everything can once again become “starting material for transformations”, everything can again become “raw material for productions”, says Peter Sloterdijk, there is no creative creation ex nihilo and the modern phantasm of tabula rasa is overcome. The creative process then consists in finding an attitude towards what has been found and developing a story from it. ”(Anh-Linh Ngo, publisher ARCH +)

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Lo Yuen Yi is an artist that is hard to define. She specialises in using text to document artists and their creative endeavours and using drawing to deconstruct and reconstruct both words and concepts. Traces is divided into two parts—words and drawings—but the same questions underlie the two: who am I? What is art? What is the essence of memories? Each question is independent yet intertwined. 



The drawings are a collection of pencil sketches, including portraits of a hand, mad women speaks featuring frames, work in progress which records the making of a hardbound book, cosmos-shells unearthed in my garden collecting shells from soil, tools Dad remade with tools as the subject etc. From defining oneself, to symbols of doubt, to capturing the broken traces left by memories. 



The words are made up of seven essays which start with a discussion about the space for creativity and end at fixation on cities. As everything disappears, Lo asks: what are memories? Are there any left? In response, she replies:



The meaning of memory is within each person’s experience

It has its own language

Your memories are not mine

My memories are not bigger than his or hers


Pages: 2 books, 170 pages in total with 4 postcards

Binding: Pamphlet binding & Saddle-stitching

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“Amaneceres Domésticos. Temas de vivienda colectiva en la Europa del siglo XXI” presenta, a partir de obras construidas, los temas principales que van modelando la vivienda colectiva europea en el siglo XXI. A través de una serie de conceptos, ejemplificados con proyectos construidos, sus editores, Carmen Espegel, Andrés Cánovas y José María de Lapuerta, proponen un lugar de reflexión y debate sobre el presente y el futuro de los espacios que habitamos. A través de 28 ejemplos paradigmáticos de vivienda construida organizados en torno a siete categorías: Conciencia climática, Recargas activas, Cuidados domésticos, Nueva gestión, Contextos urbanos, Vivir y compartir e Identidades icónicas, más un epílogo COVID se muestran los conceptos fundamentales de la nueva habitabilidad que se están desarrollando en la vivienda colectiva de la Europa de principios del siglo XXI, propiciando de este modo un debate que permita continuar avanzando en este sentido.

Textos de Carmen Espegel, Andrés Cánovas, José María de Lapuerta, Eduardo Prieto, Almudena Ribot, Hilde Heynen, Marina Otero Verzier, Elli Mosayebi, Amparo Lasén, Uriel Fogué y Javier Echeverría
Diseño: gráfica futura
Traducción: Noemí Gª Millán y Mike Lumber
Edición: Fundación ICO, Ministerio de Transportes, Movilidad y Agenda Urbana (MITMA) y Ediciones Asimétricas

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The publication of The Against, the book that documents the process, development and results of the homonymous exhibitions that simultaneously took place last Spring at multiple sites in New York.
The book not only displays the uncontrollable compulsion of graffiti bombing by 21 artists from different parts of the US, Canada and Mexico. This remarkable book focuses on those who are the exceptional graffiti bombers in the last decade. The objective was to take all of these artists, bring them together in one place, and see how they collaborate as a shared experience in New York, being the mecca of graffiti bombing. The main theme, the subject of the book, is the very work of these masters working together. In the realm of graffiti, it’s very hard to get the very top artists all the time, because some of them are either incarcerated, or they won’t relate to galleries’ projects. But the ones selected are the top bombers we could get now. Rooming together and sharing styles and techniques was a unique, collaborative experience for those involved; a graffiti bombing League; a gathering of talents; the dream team of graffiti. The book shows their singularities and differences in a remarkable display of strength and imagination, shapes, and colors.
The Martinez Gallery Books has published several books on graffiti, focusing on different themes, social and health issues, and a variety of topics related to our daily life. As the evolution of graffiti from the 90s to now has shown, you have to be more well-versed in art now, even as a bomber. We can say that the world of graffiti is ever-growing, and that, in this changing context, would be an ideal opportunity to discuss and assess what bombing is today in comparison. This book offers that opportunity and opens up the field to different alternatives and trends within graffiti culture.

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