POSITIVE ENCOUNTERS
published by s/z
book design, editorial
2023
positive encounters is a comprehensive monograph of work by the design collective bahraini—danish. The book presents as an overview of work produced between 2016-2022 narrated via technical illustrations, essayistic photography as well as archival material. It is an epistolary novel in some sense too — in media res — hence left empty of a page numbered ‘1’.
The concept for the book was developed by bahraini—danish in collaboration with graphic designer Line-Gry Hørup, and is the second release by stanza’s imprint s/z.
The book is printed exclusively in black, which evokes associations: it makes the images more ambivalent, harkens back to a different era with a possible colonial past? In “A Note on the Graphic Design” we get a glimpse of how this book is made. The designer reveals the working titles of the different image parts, the early history of the exchange between these countries, the intentions of the makers and their working method. Most certainly the “positive encounters” stem from making something together, not just the process of making which is richly documented in this book, but also the book itself is the result of a sincere and poetic collective effort.
— Linda Van Deursen, Best Danish Book Works, 2024.
