This is a special chance to meet three comic artists from exhibitions featured across the Festival of Libraries.

Throughout the 20th century, comics from the Arab world exclusively targeted children and were used by the ruling totalitarian authorities (military or religious) to control social morals and impose political and ideological agendas.

The Arab Revolutions of the past decade paved the way for the rise of independent collectives of artists from various Arab countries, seeking freedom of expression and creating a network of sharing experiences that has been and continues to shape the comics scene today. Introducing a variety of genres and breaking the boundaries of social and political taboos with a leading role for women, these collectives and independent artists are becoming the voice of the youth across the region.

See also the From Ink To Action exhibition at Manchester Central Library for the Festival of Libraries 2024. Three artists featured in the exhibition will be joining us across festival activities to share insight, skills and expertise through workshops including: Noha Habaieb, Tracy Chahwan and Zainab Fasiki. There will be a chance to meet the artists on the 15th June at Manchester Central Library.

 

About the artists

Tracy Chahwan is a Lebanese comics artist and illustrator. She started her career in Beirut in 2016, drawing posters and artworks for the local music scene, notably the Beirut Groove Collective Yukunkun Club. In 2018, she published her first graphic novel Beirut Bloody Beirut, a story of two girls lost in the Beiruti night. In parallel to that, she joined the Samandal comics collective and co-founded Zeez, its little experimental sister.

After the Lebanese revolution in October 2019, she turned to journalistic comics, collaborating in books such as Guantanamo Voices (Abrams 2020) and Where to Marie? Stories of Feminisms in Lebanon.

Tracy’s work is marked by the radical and collaborative energy of the artistic scene in Beirut, where she worked actively the past years before she moved to the U.S. in 2019.

 

Noha Habaieb is a Tunisian French visual storyteller, she is working between Doha and Tunis. After studying comics in Belgium, she returned to Tunisia where she co-founded the Lab619, an award-winning comics collective. The Lab619 published its first comics magazine for adults in Tunisia in 2013.

Noha took part in the evolution of the magazine by participating with her original comics, organizing artistic residencies themed around migration, identity and borders and improving the coordination between the group members. She contributed to several international collective exhibitions of Comics and Illustrations. In 2017, she co-founded “Koskh”, an illustration studio based in Tunisia, which aims to promote Tunisian heritage through illustrations for children and adults.

In 2022 she was part of the jury members of The Mahmoud Kahil Award which aims to promote comics, editorial cartoons and illustration in the Arab world as well as the jury of The Sharjah Children’s Book Illustration Exhibition.

Zainab Fasiki is an Artivist born in Fez July 21st 1994 , state mechanical engineer 2017, member of Skefkef fanzine since 2014 , founder of feminist and queer art collective WOMEN POWER 2018 ,author of Hshouma 2019  that won bravery award at Angouleme festival 2022 , teacher inside and outside Morocco of workshops about the role of political art to shape our mind in MENA region to criticise society and its rules about body and sexual rights.

From Ink to Action – Using Comic Art to Save the Planet is a collaboration between The Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF) and the British Council – MENA.

From Ink to Action was launched on the global stage in December 2023 at COP 28. The anthology will be launched in the U.K. as part of Festival of Libraries 2024