Sara Al-Afifi is an Artist and Researcher who uses design tools to express her thoughts and ideas because she always has something to say.
Design Activism
Currently teaching Design Activism class with Basma Hamdy. This course examines design beyond conventional client work, exploring its ethical responsibilities and potential for activism, authorship, and cultural impact. Through lectures, readings, and projects, students engage with historical and contemporary examples to address social, political, and environmental issues, using design as a tool for storytelling, advocacy, and imagining alternative futures.
COURSE STRUCTURE is divided into two
thematic sections:
The Past: This section—where most of my contribution is centered—guides students in investigating historical events, precedents, and cultural narratives, with particular attention to how they have been framed, silenced, or distorted by dominant powers. Students examine issues of colonialism, Orientalism, and representation, asking:
Whose history gets told, and whose is erased? Through reinterpretation and critique, they reframe these events to highlight overlooked perspectives and bring visibility to suppressed or marginalized voices. The aim is to reveal how design can expose, question, and rewrite histories of power.
The Future: Students will imagine speculative futures rooted in activist concerns, beginning from a pivotal event, struggle, or theme (feminist, environmental, political, decolonial, etc.). By challenging Eurocentric visions of modernity and progress, students will design alternative worlds that resist colonial frameworks and imagine futures outside of Orientalist narratives. These propositions will not only envision more equitable collective futures, but also demonstrate how design can act as a decolonial practice—building futures that reflect plural, situated, and community-driven perspectives.
2025
Students were tasked to attend Dr. Magda’s lecture on Orientalism, where they engaged attentively in class discussions and extended the conversation even after the talk ended. Following the lecture, they were tasked with the orientalist Poster Project. For this project, students could select imagery from old orientalist paintings—such as works by Jean-Léon Gérôme—or from historical advertisements that depicted the East as exotic, desert-like, and orientalized. They were asked to combine these images with typography, either using statements collected in class or from their own research. Each poster was intended to convey a strong, powerful message that juxtaposes text and image.
The project encouraged students to research their topics deeply, reconsider existing narratives, and ask critical questions: What’s missing? Whose voice is excluded? How can these perspectives be reframed? They were invited to explore archives, both physical and digital, and to incorporate visuals, texts, and materials that enriched their zine.
Design played a key role, with students creating zines that combined strong conceptual thinking with clear visual expression. The work considered typography, imagery, pacing, and materiality to create publications that were both visually engaging and thought-provoking.