To experiment with recent developments in digital printing, Print/Press (Nadine Rotem-Stibbe and Oliver Barstow) commissioned 12 artists/designers, including myself, from around the world to participate in the making of a 2019 calendar under the theme of ‘Personalization’.

For my contribution for the month of August, the warmest month in Arabia, I designed a series of anti-Orientalist tapestries where camels, belly dancers, Nawal el Zoghbi (pop artist), calligraphy, terrorism, stars and Daraweesh melt into a single elaborate visual composition, inspired by the stereotypical icons inextricably tied to the Orientalist aesthetic. At the moment these icons are brought together, they begin to melt beneath the hot August sun forming an oil slick across the surface of the calendar.

Each contributor was given one calendar month to produce a design that works with the principles of variable data. Characteristic of digital printing, variable data allows for the reproduction of unique multiples in a single print run and as a result, each contributor made 12 variables for each calendar month, which made up the final print run of 144 calendars.