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Ruben Malayan

art director and visual artist, Armenia
Bio
Ruben Malayan is an an award-winning art director and visual artist. His career in graphic design spans over twenty five years — crossing over into the fields of visual identity design, typography and calligraphy. For over a decade Ruben has been working on research about the art of specialized scripts, and has developed a portfolio of unique Armenian calligraphy. Ruben Malayan is notable for his work in social activism, as a founder of the 'Armenian Genocide in Contemporary Graphic & Art Posters' project, his protest art contributions to the 2018 Armenian Velvet Revolution and Second Artsakh War. Over the years he has taught academic drawing, graphic design and calligraphy in the United States, Canada, Italy, Russia, Poland, Romania, and Armenia. Ruben's work has been published in a number of books and magazines worldwide. In 2019 he was appointed to the board of the State Academy of Fine Arts in Yerevan, Armenia and is currently an adjunct lecturer at American University of Armenia and an academic drawing instructor at Yerevan State College of Fine Arts.
About the talk
The Art of Writing: Design and Letter culture in the Context of Revolution & War
The beginning of modern warfare spurred the rise of avant-garde movements across Europe and Russia. Designers pioneered the use of poster art as a political weapon. Constructivism in Russia, Bauhaus in Germany, Dada in Switzerland have had a considerable impact on the development of new letterforms better suited to the machine age and its propaganda. From Weimar and Leningrad to Yerevan and Shushi, Ruben Malayan will speak on the role of design and letter culture have played and keep playing in changing the mind-sets during cataclysmic events taking place in Armenia during the last few years.