Established 2009.

Foundland Collective was formed by South African Lauren Alexander (Cape Town, 1983) and Syrian Ghalia Elsrakbi (Damascus, 1978) and is today based between Amsterdam and Cairo. The platform enables them to explore shared research desires through art, design, writing, education and multidisciplinary collaboration. They continually experiment with different modes of working and have shifted roles from being artists, designers, editors, film directors and project organizers to educational facilitators and lecturers. Throughout our development we have critically reflected upon what it means to produce politically engaged, de-colonial storytelling from our position as non-Western artists working between Europe and the Middle East.

Foundland was awarded the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship for research in the largest Arab American archive in 2015/2016 and shortlisted for the Dutch Prix de Rome prize in 2015 and Dutch Design Awards in 2016.

Ghalia Elsrakbi (1978, Damascus, SYR) was based in the Netherlands until 2014, before relocating to Cairo, Egypt where she teaches at the American University. After completing a Masters in Design at the Sandberg Institute Amsterdam, she followed a research post-graduate at Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. (2010)

Lauren Alexander (1983, Cape Town, ZAR) lives and works in Amsterdam. After completing a Masters in Design at the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, she pursued an MFA at the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) in Arnhem (2011). She tutors in the Graphic Design bachelor and master programme of the Royal Academy of Arts in the Hague (KABK), as well as at the University of the Underground, master programme at the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam.

www.foundland.info