Islam Aly
• My work "Kinship" was selected for the Group Exhibition: "Bookness", Kala Art Institute, in collaboration with The CODEX Foundation, Berkley, California.
November 22, 2025 — February 11, 2026
Reception at Kala Gallery during CODEX: Sunday, Feb 8, 6:30 - 8:30 pm
• My book Sacred Meanings is in the exhibition Shape of Thought: The Book as Art, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Oct. 3, 2025 - June 30, 2026
• Honored to have been selected as an artist-in-residence through the El Anatsui Visiting Artist Fellowship for Africa-Based Artists. The fellowship took place at the Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Philadelphia, USA.
• I had a Solo exhibition and artist talk at Gould Library, Carleton College, titled "Tales, Talismans, and Time Travel: Artist's Books by Islam Aly".
• My book Cryptic Magic is in the exhibition "Paper Engineering in Art, Science, and Education" curated by Giselle Simón, Damien Ihrig, & Elizabeth Yale, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City
• I taught two workshops at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts:
- Exploring Arabic Typography with Wood Type, Plates, and Letterpress, June, 2025,
- Stiff-Leaf Binding and Variations, June, 2025, 10:
• I gave an artist talk titled: Material, Structure, and Narrative in Artists' Books
Thursday, June 26, 2025, 6:30 PM -7:30 PM, Minnesota Center for Book, Minneapolis, MN
Free & Open to all, Registration is highly encouraged through MCBA website.
• Honored to have two of my books, "The Square ," and "Marginalia VI" included in the exhibition "10 × 10 for 10: Ten years of Letterform Archive. One hundred objects of typographic design". The exhibition runs from April 26 – October 12, 2025, at The Letterform Archive, San Francisco, CA
• I exhibited at Crossing the Line: The Passport Re-Imagined, Curated by Catherine Alice Michaelis and Cynthia Sears, San Francisco Center for the Book, San Francisco, CA, April 19- June 15, 2025
• I participated in Tropic Bound, Miami’s international, biennial Artists’ Book Fair, Miami Design District, Miami, Florida, February 6-9, 2025
• I participated in the Tokyo Art Book Fair, Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, November 28- December 1, 2024. Thanks to Culture Resource for the travel support through the Wijhat program.
•I am profoundly honored to have my work included as part of the ‘Collecting Arab Visual Cultures (1960 to Today)’ project at The British Library, aiming to enhance the British Library’s collections of modern and contemporary visual culture from the Arab world.
• My work "Kinship" was selected as a semi-finalist in the Minnesota Center for Book Arts Book Art Biennial, Minneapolis, MN, Aug 17-Oct 12, 2024.
• Honored to have my book,"Marginalia 1," included in the exhibition "Language, Decipherment, And Translation - From then to Now," curated by Deirdre E. Lawrence. The exhibition runs from February 29 to May 11, 2024, at The Grolier Club in New York.
• My book "Enigmatic Talismans" is in the exhibition: Making the Book, Past and Present, Curated by Eric Ensley and Emily Martin, January 17 – June 28, 2024, The University of Iowa, Main Library Gallery, Iowa City, Iowa
• I exhibited my work at the CODEX Book Fair & Symposium, Oakland, CA, February 4-7, 2024.
• My book Metamorphosis 4 was featured on the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art YouTube channel, Artist's Books Unshelved, in an episode titled: Small Changes, Big Transformation, March 2023
• The Square was featured in the Letterform Archive exhibition and publication Strikethrough: Typographic Messages of Protest on View July 23, 2022–April 16, 2023
• Two of my books are in a show at Baylor University libraries. “What is a book?” curated by Sha Towers, Moody & Jones Libraries, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, December 2022.