Studio Pouya Ahmadi

Pouya Ahmadi is a designer, artist and an associate professor of graphic design at RISD. His research explores the intertwined material and typographic manifestations of language and power through publishing, installations and lecture-performances. He is interested in the South West Asian articulation of and complicated relationship with modernity beyond its Western/Euro-American stricture. His practice explores notions of hybridity through projects that examine and materialize the sociopolitical and cultural conditioning of displaced bodies and the liminal states they traverse. He is interested in modes of production and dissemination that can engage and articulate layered and multivalent identities, both individual and collective.

Pouya is the founder of Studio Pouya Ahmad, whose clients include Museum of Contemporary Arts of Chicago, Design Museum of Chicago, Experimental Film Society of Ireland, Neshan magazine, Sector 2337, Public Works gallery, Verge Books and Green Lantern Press, among many others. Additionally, Pouya edits and designs Amalgam, an independent journal that explores the intersection of typography, language and power. He also served as a guest editor and editorial board member of Neshanmagazine from 2009–20.

Pouya has presented at venues including Typographics, Adobe Live and TypeCon, and his work has been exhibited at the Moscow Global Biennale of Graphic Design, Dubai Design Week, AIGA Eye on Design, the Type Directors Club and East Sea International Art Biennale, among others.