Research Field: Multiscript Typography, Diasporic experiences, Decoloniality, Visual cultures, critical heritage
Current projects: Exploring the Diasporic Life of Armenian Script: a multiscript design laboratory (PhD candidate)
Garine Gokceyan holds an MA in Graphic and Visual Communication from l’École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels de La Cambre, Brussels (2017), and a Teaching Diploma in Fine Arts from the same institution (2018). Currently, she is a PhD research fellow at ARIA (Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts), a collaboration between the University of Antwerp and Sint Lucas School of Arts.
An independent graphic designer and researcher born in Beirut, Gokceyan's work spans multiple disciplines and focuses on themes such as identities, languages, design politics, archives, and collective resource creation. Her approach incorporates multicultural and multiscriptual perspectives.
Employing critical, archival, and research-based design methods, Garine’s research is guided by an intersectional feminist and decolonial framework. As a multilingual designer and educator, she aims to expand the field of type design and its advancement, viewing typography as a medium for expressing cultures, identities, histories, and politics, while also critically examining the impact of colonialism on language and its visual representation.
Her current PhD project aims to create multiform tools (such as a typeface, glossary, guidebook) and ressources for the Armenian alphabet, with the goal of providing the Armenian community with authentic communication and design tools. This effort seeks to combat the marginalization of Armenian culture and to preserve the integrity of the Armenian writing system within the diasporic community. The project acknowledges the intertwined fortunes of the Armenian alphabet with Armenia’s and the diaspora’s political and social histories, and with the micro and macro histories of its people.
The discussion surrounding the alphabet extends to issues of sovereignty and challenges the dominant position of the Latin alphabet.