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Atelier Axiom
All exhibitions

Graphic Design

Set and Reset

Modular alphabets built from a handful of repeated parts, from carved wood blocks to the poster shops using them now.

Dates
14 November 2026 to 28 February 2027
Location
Axiom Gallery One, London
Format
In person and online
Sources
Oaxaca, Dessau, Fez
Interlocking teardrop-shaped wooden blocks in beige and tan, arranged into a symmetrical repeating pattern.

Interlocking teardrop-shaped wooden blocks in beige and tan, arranged into a symmetrical repeating pattern.

About this exhibition

A modular alphabet is a bet: that a small set of shapes, recombined, can carry a whole language. Zellige tile cutters in Fez made that bet, so did Oaxacan block printers, so did the Dessau workshops, and each arrived somewhere different.

The exhibition lays three historic systems flat and then hands their parts to four contemporary studios. Visitors can set a line themselves at a working table of cast blocks, print it, and take it away.

A wall of printed attempts, kept in the order they were made, records what happens when a system meets a language it was never cut for.

Featured artists

  • Mateo Bautista
  • Amina Cherkaoui
  • Studio Reset
  • Bea Lindqvist

Partners

  • Taller Grafica Oaxaca
  • Zellige Cutters Guild, Fez
  • Poster Shop Network

Access passes cover the gallery, the reading room and the source documents. Free for makers, students and anyone named in the work.