Siwar Krai(y)tem

Siwar Krai(y)tem is an artist, graphic designer, and researcher based between Beirut and Amsterdam. She was part of the Disarming Design (D.D.) temporary program at the Sandberg Instituut. Her research has been focusing on language and multilingualism. She also works with playful forms of diary entries, calendars, and public negotiation formats both in writing and installations. She has been the recipient of AFK’s 3-package deal and has participated in Mophradat’s New Agents Program in 2024. In her design practice she works regularly with the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), Mophradat, Gemeente Amsterdam, Switch Perspective and others. Most recently, she was in residency at Think Tanger in Morocco and was invited to partcicpate in a Bookmaking workshop for book makers with Rietlanden Women’s Office, organized by Mophradat in Athens, Greece. Currently, Siwar’s installation ‘abs(dis)tracted calendar’ is on show as part of the exhibition ‘Between Land and Sky’ at MaMa in Rotterdam. Below are some of her most recent projects, as well as a downloadable CV and portfolio.


CV 
                        Contact
28 Days in Tangier  / 2025  (research + calendar design)
The calendar / Asriyya عصرية / Takweem تقويم / Ruznama رزنامة is a quotidian item found in many Moroccan and Lebanese homes. It sits there, on the shelf in the kitchen, hanging on the fridge, with an expiry date wide and proud. An object that carries little traces ; perhaps a religious story, a recipe, or a proverb to inspire your day, an Arab fortune cookie of sorts, bearing witness to the multi-lingual realities, part lunar, part solar. This calendar is a multi-lingual take on this object, influenced by the calendar culture between Morocco and Lebanon. It tells parallel stories of two multi-lingual port cities: Tangier and Beirut. It also speaks to daily habits, pace, and the passage and perception of time in those two cities through food and coffee / tea habits, encounters and stories of how we experience this object. It also offers a glossary that reflects the nuances of dialects between the two places. A heavy history carries them across; two Arab and Mediterranean cities, widely occupied, fighting in their own ways. 

AFAC 2026 Calendar  / 2025  (calendar design)
To start another year, AFAC wishes to gift a memorable wall calendar that introduces its uplifted identity. 


       When Mokum Meets Al Maghrib  / 2025  (illustration, publication, and merchandise design)
When ‘Mokum Meets Al Maghrib’ is a cultural exchange trip organized by Gemeente Amsterdam and DutchCulture for cultural actors in the Netherlands visiting cultural institutions to the cities of Rabat, Marrakesh, and Casablanca in Morocco.

  
           Land Stories / 2025  (publication design)
Land stories is a publication developped by Jibal in Lebanon that collects stories from farmers on different crops that grow in Lebanon including apples, aubergine, citrus, cumin, olives, loubieh, wild plants, and wheat.


           abs(dis)tracted calendar / 2024  (installation and performance)

The work presented by Siwar Kraitem speaks to a testament of change through encounters with language, recording encounters and mementos as part of a reinterpreted calendar of documented time in the Netherlands.

A calendar.
A record of the quotidian.
A calendar of memory, alienation, belonging…
Encounters with a reality of resistance.
A testament of time passing and all that that means, accents shifting.
Notions gained, others lost.
A reimagined familiarity.
       A Song to a Place  / 2024  ( publication design)
A Song to a Place is a production diary by artist Noor Abed documenting her film sets and reflecting on the filming process under difficult conditions in Palestine. 



           ‘The New Agents’ Variety Show’  with Mophradat at Kaaitheater / 2024  (Playbill and co-curated performance)


I was invited to take part in The New Agents Program, an 18-month residency program by Mophradat. As a culmination of the program, we, a group of 5 Arab artists and cultural practioners were invited to co-curate an evening as part of the Read the Room Festival at the Kaaitheater in Brussels in October 2024. We curated a variety show featuring a play: ‘Nauseating Delirium”, and invited artsits including: Commonground, Kid Fourteen, and Samaa Wakim.

The playbill is designed and edited by Siwar Krai(y)tem and Sara Bouzgarrou with the cover illustration by Karen Kayrouz. The publication features texts, a crossword-puzzle and comissioned illustrations that present a take on the conversations, negotiations, collaborations, and comissions that resulted from a shared learning period and co-curatorial experiment.

           Yaani / 2024 (collective installation and publication)
The publication is based on spiral binding, allowing for different sequences based on each of the members of the collective’s experiences.

          Still in my Quotidian / 2024 (performance)
The lecture performance takes on language as a confrontational tool. It addresses language in relation to questions of privilege, hierarchy, and precarity, reflecting on multilingualism and society and tools of social negotiation. Still in my quotidian is a housewarming of sorts for a stranger in Amsterdam, a long awaited one. As Siwar receives their residency permit to stay another two years here, they question what it means to stay in Amsterdam, find space and allow for their language to claim space. It is an invitation to respond to texts Siwar wrote about her encounters with her arabic mother tongue in Amsterdam. It is a collaboration with Alev Ersan, Betül Aksu and Hanieh Fatouraee whom Siwar first met on a screen in 2023, as part of BAK's Fellowship for Situated Practice. Soon after, they formed a gathering called ‘Yaani’ inspired by the common word in colloquial Arabic and Turkish. Alev and Betül will be performing with Siwar about belonging, alienation, and familiarity as part of their ongoing discussion around language. Hanieh's voice will accompany them through a remote yet close proximity.