El Seed French - Tunisian, b. 1981
eL Seed (b.1981, Paris) uses Arabic calligraphy and a distinctive style to spread messages of peace, unity and to underline the commonalities of human existence. His artwork can be found all over the world and consistently aims at unifying communities and redressing stereotypes.
eL Seed was raised in Paris to Tunisian parents, but felt somewhat disconnected from his Arabic roots. In his teenage years in a kind of quest for his identity, he began to delve into his own heritage and learned to read and write standard Arabic. He found that Arabic calligraphy was a way of building a link between his French and Tunisian backgrounds - he began to use his calligraphic art as a tool to build bridges all over the world. On his more ambitious and site specific projects, he spends a long time researching to find an appropriate quote to summarise the voice of the community he is working within and to underline his key principles of love, respect and tolerance.
His work has been shown in exhibitions and in public places all over the world including most notably on the façade of L’Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, on the DMZ in between North and South Korea, in the slums of Cape Town and in the heart of Cairo’s garbage collectors neighbourhood. In 2017, he won the UNESCO Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture. He was named a Global Thinker in 2016 by Foreign Policy for his project ‘Perception’ in Cairo. In 2013, he collaborated with Louis Vuitton on their famous ‘Foulard d’Artiste’.
