Jamila Alemi
Jamila Alemi is a Dutch-Afghan graphic designer based in Arnhem, the Netherlands.
She recently graduated from ArtEZ Arnhem with a bachelor's degree in Graphic Design.
Her projects touch upon a wide range of topics, from found footage and social media culture
to an installation exploring refugee representation in the media.
Je Kunt Een Boom Niet Uit Zijn Grond Trekken En Verwachten Dat Hij Hetzelfde Verder Groeit
2026 (Graduation work)
Je Kunt Een Boom Niet Uit Zijn Grond Trekken En Verwachten Dat Hij Hetzelfde Verder Groeit is an installation exploring the negative perceptions of refugees and the role the media plays in shaping them. Taking its title from a conversation with the artist's father about what it feels like to flee one's country, the work brings together video, photography, and text to contrast public representations with personal experiences, offering a more intimate perspective on what it means to leave one's home behind.
The video responds to how the media contributes to negative perceptions of refugees through its use of language, camera perspectives, and recurring imagery. Expressions such as "a wave of refugees" or "an asylum tsunami," combined with aerial shots of large groups, shape the way refugees are perceived, often reducing individuals to anonymous masses rather than people with families, memories, and personal histories. Rather than documenting refugees themselves, the video reflects on how these narratives are constructed and the perspectives they create.
Surrounding the video are photographs and handwritten texts by the artist's father, written in response to questions about leaving Syria. Together, they form a personal counterpoint to the media narratives presented in the video. The smaller photographs offer a glimpse into the life he was forced to leave behind. Some focus on the landscapes and places that shaped his memories, while others capture moments with family and everyday life. A large-scale family portrait, printed at 170 × 200 cm, places viewers face to face with the people so often reduced to distant news images.
The handwritten texts remain exactly as they were written, preserving the artist's father's wording, sentence structure, and spelling. Rather than rewriting or refining his responses, the work deliberately leaves his voice untouched, allowing him to speak for himself instead of being spoken for. Alongside the installation, a small publication provides English translations of the texts together with additional photographs from the family archive, extending the personal narrative beyond the exhibition space while keeping the original handwritten pages at the centre of the work.
By placing media representations alongside personal memories, Je Kunt Een Boom Niet Uit Zijn Grond Trekken En Verwachten Dat Hij Hetzelfde Verder Groeit invites viewers to reconsider how refugees are represented and how these representations shape personal opinions. Rather than speaking about refugees as a collective, the installation returns attention to individual lives, relationships, and the lasting impact of displacement.
︎Click here to see the video
︎The booklet & more pictures
The video responds to how the media contributes to negative perceptions of refugees through its use of language, camera perspectives, and recurring imagery. Expressions such as "a wave of refugees" or "an asylum tsunami," combined with aerial shots of large groups, shape the way refugees are perceived, often reducing individuals to anonymous masses rather than people with families, memories, and personal histories. Rather than documenting refugees themselves, the video reflects on how these narratives are constructed and the perspectives they create.
Surrounding the video are photographs and handwritten texts by the artist's father, written in response to questions about leaving Syria. Together, they form a personal counterpoint to the media narratives presented in the video. The smaller photographs offer a glimpse into the life he was forced to leave behind. Some focus on the landscapes and places that shaped his memories, while others capture moments with family and everyday life. A large-scale family portrait, printed at 170 × 200 cm, places viewers face to face with the people so often reduced to distant news images.
The handwritten texts remain exactly as they were written, preserving the artist's father's wording, sentence structure, and spelling. Rather than rewriting or refining his responses, the work deliberately leaves his voice untouched, allowing him to speak for himself instead of being spoken for. Alongside the installation, a small publication provides English translations of the texts together with additional photographs from the family archive, extending the personal narrative beyond the exhibition space while keeping the original handwritten pages at the centre of the work.
By placing media representations alongside personal memories, Je Kunt Een Boom Niet Uit Zijn Grond Trekken En Verwachten Dat Hij Hetzelfde Verder Groeit invites viewers to reconsider how refugees are represented and how these representations shape personal opinions. Rather than speaking about refugees as a collective, the installation returns attention to individual lives, relationships, and the lasting impact of displacement.
︎Click here to see the video
︎The booklet & more pictures
Me Talk Pretty One Day
2025
In
collaboration with Fay Buurman & Jara Hermanns
Me Talk Pretty One Day is a redesign of the book by David Sedaris, developed around the themes of travel, language, and dislocation. In the original, Sedaris reflects on his move from the United States to France, navigating a new culture and the awkwardness of learning a new language, experiences that shape much of the book’s tone and structure.
The design draws from the visual language of public transit and travel documents. Long and narrow in format, the proportions reference folded metro maps, while the book opens and closes with alternating layers of grey and yellow paper. Perforated lines of holes appear across these early and final pages, resembling the tear-off markings of transport tickets.
Throughout the book, references to transit systems are woven into the structure. The title pages display a vertical line with 27 black dots, each representing a chapter. The current chapter is indicated by a punched-out hole in place of its dot, marking it like a stop on a route. This visual system continues in the running header, where the same transit line reappears horizontally across each spread. A larger black dot marks the reader’s current chapter, and the line gently shifts in height, beginning high on the left page and dropping slightly lower
on the right, to subtly indicate the transition from part one to part two.
Typography was chosen to echo the tone of the writing.
Katari is used for quoted speech, capturing the bold, outspoken character of Sedaris’s voice, while EB Garamond carries the rest of the text with a more grounded, narrative rhythm.
Tight margins and long text frames reflect the density and pacing of Sedaris’s storytelling.
Rather than simply framing the text, the redesign mirrors its rhythm, quietly shaped by movement, structure, and shifts in language. Me Talk Pretty One Day becomes not just a book to read, but one to navigate, punched, paced, and mapped like a journey of its own.
︎More info & stills
Me Talk Pretty One Day is a redesign of the book by David Sedaris, developed around the themes of travel, language, and dislocation. In the original, Sedaris reflects on his move from the United States to France, navigating a new culture and the awkwardness of learning a new language, experiences that shape much of the book’s tone and structure.
The design draws from the visual language of public transit and travel documents. Long and narrow in format, the proportions reference folded metro maps, while the book opens and closes with alternating layers of grey and yellow paper. Perforated lines of holes appear across these early and final pages, resembling the tear-off markings of transport tickets.
Throughout the book, references to transit systems are woven into the structure. The title pages display a vertical line with 27 black dots, each representing a chapter. The current chapter is indicated by a punched-out hole in place of its dot, marking it like a stop on a route. This visual system continues in the running header, where the same transit line reappears horizontally across each spread. A larger black dot marks the reader’s current chapter, and the line gently shifts in height, beginning high on the left page and dropping slightly lower
on the right, to subtly indicate the transition from part one to part two.
Typography was chosen to echo the tone of the writing.
Katari is used for quoted speech, capturing the bold, outspoken character of Sedaris’s voice, while EB Garamond carries the rest of the text with a more grounded, narrative rhythm.
Tight margins and long text frames reflect the density and pacing of Sedaris’s storytelling.
Rather than simply framing the text, the redesign mirrors its rhythm, quietly shaped by movement, structure, and shifts in language. Me Talk Pretty One Day becomes not just a book to read, but one to navigate, punched, paced, and mapped like a journey of its own.
︎More info & stills
Modern Design in Jewellery and Fans
2024
Modern Design in Jewellery and Fans is a redesigned catalogue based on the book of the same name, originally edited by Charles Holme. The project focuses on a selected portion of the publication and reinterprets it into a visually focused, contemporary format.
Created as part of a design assignment with specific constraints, the project required selecting a title from the Project Gutenberg archive, limited to the art category, and redesigning it into a 48-page catalogue. Within these restrictions, this version highlights the jewellery and fans featured in the original, presenting them in a more curated and spacious layout.
The layout was kept minimal to allow the jewellery and fans to take center stage, highlighting their decorative qualities and refined detail. With the use of shimmering silver paper and fine silver thread for binding, these choices aim to echo the texture and delicacy of the works featured.
By isolating and recontextualizing elements from the original book, Modern Design in Jewellery and Fans presents historical imagery through a contemporary editorial lens, shifting the emphasis toward visual storytelling through layout, pacing, and material choices.
︎More info & stills
Created as part of a design assignment with specific constraints, the project required selecting a title from the Project Gutenberg archive, limited to the art category, and redesigning it into a 48-page catalogue. Within these restrictions, this version highlights the jewellery and fans featured in the original, presenting them in a more curated and spacious layout.
The layout was kept minimal to allow the jewellery and fans to take center stage, highlighting their decorative qualities and refined detail. With the use of shimmering silver paper and fine silver thread for binding, these choices aim to echo the texture and delicacy of the works featured.
By isolating and recontextualizing elements from the original book, Modern Design in Jewellery and Fans presents historical imagery through a contemporary editorial lens, shifting the emphasis toward visual storytelling through layout, pacing, and material choices.
︎More info & stills
The Language of Hands
2023
The Language of Hands is a photographic exploration of hands as captured in the artworks archived by the Rijksmuseum.
By isolating these artworks from their larger context, this project delves into the delicate expressions of hands as they appear in historic artworks, focusing on how they hold, rest, and interact in ways that reveal intimacy and emotion.
In this project, hands become the storytellers, speaking across centuries through softness of touch, posture, and placement.
Each artwork captures a gesture that might otherwise go unnoticed, a hand lightly touching a sleeve, fingers wrapped around an object, or holding each other's hands.
The Language of Hands invites the viewer to engage with the timeless, quiet language of hands as a window into the human experience, bridging generations through a shared,
silent touch.
︎ More info & stills
By isolating these artworks from their larger context, this project delves into the delicate expressions of hands as they appear in historic artworks, focusing on how they hold, rest, and interact in ways that reveal intimacy and emotion.
In this project, hands become the storytellers, speaking across centuries through softness of touch, posture, and placement.
Each artwork captures a gesture that might otherwise go unnoticed, a hand lightly touching a sleeve, fingers wrapped around an object, or holding each other's hands.
The Language of Hands invites the viewer to engage with the timeless, quiet language of hands as a window into the human experience, bridging generations through a shared,
silent touch.
︎ More info & stills
Paris Photo - Merch
2025 (Internship)
Made for Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam
Merch developed for Foam during Paris Photo, marking the launch of Foam Magazine #67: The Test of Time. The event took place in a bar setting, extending Foam’s presence beyond the fair into a more informal, social environment.
A series of merchandise concepts was proposed, including lighters, keychains, stickers, matchboxes, and wristbands. Wristbands and matchboxes were produced and distributed to visitors, while beer coasters were used throughout the evening at the venue. In addition, new business cards were designed for distribution during the fair.
︎Merch concepts & process
Merch developed for Foam during Paris Photo, marking the launch of Foam Magazine #67: The Test of Time. The event took place in a bar setting, extending Foam’s presence beyond the fair into a more informal, social environment.
A series of merchandise concepts was proposed, including lighters, keychains, stickers, matchboxes, and wristbands. Wristbands and matchboxes were produced and distributed to visitors, while beer coasters were used throughout the evening at the venue. In addition, new business cards were designed for distribution during the fair.
︎Merch concepts & process