ATypI 2026 Sharjah – who is going?

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  • jfporchez
    jfporchez Posts: 13
    edited November 4

    I have read the statement made by ATypI board https://atypi.org/2026/11/03/statement-from-the-board-of-directors-of-atypi/

    The response of the ATypI is already a Ukrainian victory. 🇺🇦
    Because the pressure exerted for months by Oleksandra Korchevska-Tsekhosh, Kateryna Korolevtseva and many others will have produced a useful effect within the type community that far exceeds the case of the ATypI board alone. This board statement confirm the silence for nearly four months on serious, good-faith questions can be seen as indifference. The absence of public comment when Ukrainian colleagues withdrew suggested apathy, but nothing.

    Starting with excuses was an important point; acknowledging that “Ukrainian colleagues withdrew from a conference they felt at home in” was a beginning. However, it’s worth remembering the ATypI Code of Conduct: “Association, its members and participants at our events are expected to help ensure a friendly and safe environment for everyone.”  To clarify, Ukrainian speakers cancelled their participation to ATypI 2026 Sharjah, UAE, because ATypI couldn’t guarantee what the association claims. This was a significant failure and I’m unconvinced by ATypI’s attempt to reverse the situation few months after to avoid to face the initial problem: When EU, USA and many others countries have sanctions against Russia, it is probably not a got idea to accept speaker from this country.

    References

  • Simon Cozens
    Simon Cozens Posts: 902

    None of that excuses what we have described above; we say it only so you know you are talking to colleagues, not a faceless institution.

    The Board of Directors, ATypI

    Guys, guys.
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,594
    I agree a foundational question is about where conferences should be held. What criteria ought to be used for such a list? 
  • James Montalbano
    James Montalbano Posts: 160
    edited November 5
    After reading these thoughtful and lengthy comments (not all of them) it strikes me that perhaps ATypI has outlived its usefulness and should just say goodbye. 
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,594
    James Montalbano said:
    After reading these thoughtful and lengthy comments (not all of them) it strikes me that perhaps ATypI has outlived its usefulness and should just say goodbye. 
    That's also a foundational question that I think needs to be answered. There's a lot of type events in certain cities and countries around the world, and almost nothing in others, and truly nothing in others still. 

    Is there value in there being "the" international association of type designers that aspires to create a space for all, big and small, new and old, West and East and North and South - and that carries more prestige and academic rigour than the monthly pub meetups available in many cities now? 
  • SCarewe
    SCarewe Posts: 138
    Speaking of West and East and North and South, the 2027 ATypI conference will be in Beijing, China. Maybe off-topic, but just in case people are interested.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,896
    On the subject of really nice meals: the gala dinner on the closing night of the conference was still a standard feature of the ATypI congress when I began attending, and remained so into the 2000s. The fact that it no longer happens feels like the most obvious sign that ATypI today is not the same organisation as it was. I can’t imagine Charles Peignot et al showing up to an event that didn’t include a gala dinner. :D
  • jfporchez
    jfporchez Posts: 13
    edited November 5

    Since early ~2000, the ATypI board switched from conference centers and hotels to universities and schools to make the place more affordable. It seems still the majority of the cases 20 years later?

    In parallel make possible to organise a conference, you need a local team of volunteers ready to make it happen.

    Different factors limit the desire to go to this or that place, even if the idea of being on one continent or another can be a signal for the typographic community. I don't know if this is the case today, but thinking about the size of the audience, its geographical location, and the average budget to come to this conference seems to me a more important element than the signal of being present in such or such city. Because organising a conference in a place that is difficult to access, there may only be the local community and a few employees of tech giants. Very few independent designers and small foundries, the core group of what ATypI is made for. As for such type users are not anymore a target.


    Edit: reloading page after my post, @John Hudson posts appeared and, I can see we're on same track.

  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,234
    Simon Cozens said:
    If it's just to run the conference, well, OK, but there's nothing special about that that other conference organisers aren't doing, and ATypI is truly just another player in the font conference game.
    That is certainly not true. No other type conference regularly goes to different countries worldwide.
  • Simon Cozens
    Simon Cozens Posts: 902
    Well, sure. But locally-organised conferences are springing up in different countries worldwide, which (IMO) diminishes the need for a travelling one.
  • Nadine Chahine
    Nadine Chahine Posts: 164
    Much as I appreciate the effort that the board puts into organising conferences I am not comfortable assigning the blame of the debacle on UAE laws and not on the lack of common sense when accepting topics. We are in the 5th year of the Russian invasion of 2022, clearly accepting a Russian speaker should have raised a red flag and a quick check with the Ukrainian community would have alleviated this entire drama. 

    And I say lack of common sense because of the inclusion of the Russian flag in a post from just this week. After everything that has been said… ATypI needs to be able to read the room and restricting locations is not going to fix this.

    https://www.instagram.com/reels/DfP-heVRg2c/

    Further, I would not rely too strongly on democracy indexes for a few reasons:
    - the US still counts as one but their border policy and what ICE does puts people from the Middle East and south America in physical danger. This is serious. 
    - if we restrict to democracies then we are depriving design communities of the opportunity to host this event because of the actions of their government. 
    - there is a fair number of democracies that are currently arming and funding a genocide. If we are going to judge a location by the politics of its government then we need to be fair. 


  • Nadine Chahine
    Nadine Chahine Posts: 164
    Totally agree Chris. And when it comes to ATypI dropping the conference to do other things, where will the funding come from, and what are these other things? We need 1 ATypI with 2 committees. One for thought leadership and one for the event. 
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,896
    I presume criteria for deciding where to host a conference will need to form a matrix, and there won’t be one easy criterion to either include or exclude many locations. As Nadine notes, even freely and fairly elected governments can pursue policies or actions that are contrary to the values that an organisation like ATypI might espouse, or pose a danger to its members or event attendees.
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,594
    edited November 5
    I believe I was the only person to attend from a tech giant last week. Obviously the previous event in silicon valley was different. But such participation in Denmark the year before was, as I recall, muted.

    I attended the first conference also in Helsinki in 2005, and attended most but not all since 2010. Broadly, off the top of my head here, the hosting has varied between campuses and private event spaces, and the gala meals have trailed off, I think Amsterdam was an exception in part because the local team had a strong memory of what it was in decades prior and revived that against the trend to become what it has been in the last decade.

    For me there were many good ones, and off the dome over 20 years, the Warsaw, Barcelona and Tokyo ones were especially good. But some had more issues than others, and afaik each year depends a lot on volunteers and there is always some element of amnesia where the organizing team is doing it for the first time and for one time, every year. So I'm very forgiving about such issues. 

    The foundational question of constituency is also a good one that the current organization ought to clarify imo.

    I see FontStand as a very good event specifically for majority European independent designers and small foundries, and while they are a major constituency of ATypI, a core group of what ATypI is made for, I always found since 2005 that ATypI was "the big one": the most prestigious, the most academic rigour without the pitfalls of real academia, the most "hard core, full time, professional, we are all here making a career and a living with typeface design and technology" event. This means I expect to see stuff from the bigger companies and tech companies, in a way I don't expect from FontStand. 

    The main alternative event for me - not so much a competitor - in those two decades was of course TypeCon in the USA, which was in spirit less academic and less technical. 

    Typographics in NYC is further along that axis, very much more about the users and customers of type than type designers, while still giving a stage to some type designers. When I'm there, I actually don't attend much of the main stage program, I stick to the TypeLab that was mentioned as co-organized by Petr and Berlow at 90s ATypI events and is now hosted there, and co organized by Petr still. 

    That reflects how personally I'm not very interested in typography, I'm interested in type design -- to the extent the two things can be distinguished separately.

    So yes to Simon Cozens point, while there are comparable or adjacent events every year in certain cities, or certain countries, I do think there is value in The Big International Serious Type Design event being held around the world each year. 

    Being held around the world may mean being in places ranking low on those lists Christine cites, and excluding some people, just as the recent atypi conferences in Europe excluded people who couldn't get a Shengen visa. I think ensuring the event can run hybrid online is an important mitigation to that. 

    I completely agree with Christine that ATypI must now gather member views about such criteria and fully consider pros and cons and create a clear policy that's informed by it's member views.

    I believe that ATypI has in recent years (decades? ha) missed some opportunities to do more than only the conference, and this crisis is an opportunity to revitalize the organization and interest in those things. 

    So! I encourage anyone here who is not a member to join the association and participate this year in shaping the future of the organization.
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,594
    Nadine Chahine said:
    clearly accepting a Russian speaker should have raised a red flag and a quick check with the Ukrainian community would have alleviated this entire drama. 
    I am very interested to hear the profile of a Russian speaker that anyone in the Ukrainian community would be happy to see on stage... Is there one?

    For example, if a Russian designer left Russia, cut ties with Russia, attends anti Putin events outside russia, no longer operates a Russian company, but accepts payments for Cyrillic typeface licenses from people entering a Russian address into the form, would they be welcome, or would they be asked to withdraw? 


  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,896
    edited 1:46AM
    I have discussed this with some Ukrainian colleagues, Dave, and while I don’t want to speak for them this is my understanding:
    Financially contributing to the Russian state is a big issue for Ukrainians for obvious reasons. An individual or company paying taxes in Russia is funding the war, regardless of his or her personal opinions. This is why some Russian designers who have left the country and may be critical of the regime, but have business ties with Russia and pay taxes there, are still going to be considered persona non grata by Ukrainians.
    I think a dissident exile who has fully broken ties with the Russian state, does not pay taxes there, and who is outspoken against the war and stands in solidarity with Ukraine would be acceptable, but any Russian speaker is going to be subject to intense scrutiny.
    _____
    In considering criticism I received from one person on Mastodon regarding protest against giving a platform to ParaType in Sharjah, I have formulated my own position in terms of what participation normalises. If I were living and working under a repressive regime that imprisons, tortures, and murders its own citizens, and that wages a war of aggression and commits documented war crimes, I would not want those things to be normalised. I would want my country to be considered an international pariah. Simply as a citizen and inhabitant of that country — regardless of my personal opinion of the state —, I would not expect to be allowed to participate in international conferences. I would not ask to participate in such events, because I understand that to do so would be to normalise the actions of the regime.
    In recent years, a lot of ugly stuff has been normalised, as both international rules-based norms and civil society in many countries have been weakened and deliberately undermined. This makes it all the more important for organisations and communities to establish strong values.
  • jfporchez
    jfporchez Posts: 13
    edited November 5
    There’s something simple in the EU: sanctions don’t allow the sale of software to Russia. As French citizens, we (we are two partners) do our best to follow the laws of our country and European laws. Since 2022, you can’t buy fonts with an address in Russia at Typofonderie.com.
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,594
    edited 12:50AM
    Thanks JH and JFP, that's helpful. 

    But John, are you saying the USA is a pariah state? In reading your list I'm like, check check check
  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,537
    Trump is a pariah President.
  • Boris Melnichenko
    Boris Melnichenko Posts: 3

    This case is easier than others.

    You have a very concrete letter from Ukrainian colleagues about one specific case, with evidence and arguments.

    If anyone has concerns about any other foundry working with some other government, please write a similar argument, and let’s discuss it only after the Ukrainian colleagues have received a response.

    You can start with this question:
    Is there an open letter, addressed by a delegate, with clear evidence and arguments, and signed by international colleagues?

    You can then continue with these criteria:

    1. Is there an ongoing war of aggression? Are there any potential partners, or joint public appearances at the same events, with people directly involved in it?
    2. Are there any international sanctions against the state, its institutions, businesses or individuals? Is there reason to see a member of the international typography community as a potential close partner of such institutions?
    3. Is there an ongoing international investigation into crimes against humanity or genocide? any ongoing international actions designating the state as a sponsor of terrorism, such as the European Parliament’s resolution on Russia? Are there any potential close partners who may be involved in media work that legitimizes those actions?
    4. Are there any available investigations into the involvement of this state and para-state actors in information operations in other countries? Are there any potential close partners involved?
    5. Have any of the partners appeared in public with political actors who may be considered radical? Are there any signs of clear imperialist intentions?

    So let’s say it’s rather difficult to find such a match. These contacts aren’t easy to establish. They are actually very difficult to obtain, and they are based on structural processes.

    And again, as I wrote in my previous message, this is not about some abstract “every Russian citizen” or Russian state in general. It is about a very small group of close partners who have appeared at the same events in Russia for years.

    I spent four years debating with pro-regime designers, and whenever I wrote something, I usually received a “what about…” response.

    If ATypI or any other colleagues are interested in more detailed information, please contact me directly.

    After I spoke up here, and although Anna Yakupova said she would not comment, she came to my personal blog and continued commenting in a more threatening way. At the same time, Artem Geller contacted my institutions and threatened legal action against me.

    So I would be very grateful if ATypI could respond to the Ukrainian colleagues as soon as possible. 

  • SCarewe
    SCarewe Posts: 138
    That checklist sounds a lot like the US, minus the open letter...

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