ABOUT
Islam Aly is a book artist and lecturer of bookbinding at the German University in Cairo. He holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Art Education from Helwan University, an MFA in Book Arts from the University of Iowa, and a Ph.D. in Teaching and Learning with a concentration in Art Education, also from the University of Iowa.
His artistic practice explores the intersection of culture, history, technology, and aesthetics. Drawing on historical bookbinding traditions while incorporating contemporary materials and digital technologies, Islam creates artists’ books that explore the relationship between form, content, and meaning. His work reimagines the book as both a physical object and a space for storytelling, cultural memory, and experimentation, bringing traditional craftsmanship into dialogue with contemporary artistic practices.
Artist Statement
I am drawn to the book as both a physical object and a space for ideas. Its meaning unfolds through the reader’s hands: opening a cover, turning a page, lifting a layer, or discovering something held within a compartment. These gestures create a pace and intimacy that matter to me. I think of the reader as an active participant, bringing the work into being through attention, movement, and curiosity.
My work explores cultural memory, identity, belonging, and the movement of people and cultures. I am interested in what objects preserve, what they leave absent, and how their meanings change as they travel between places and generations. Language, symbols, and historical references become starting points for these questions. Through sequence, repetition, scale, and the relationship between what is revealed and concealed, I look for ways to give these ideas a tangible form.
Historical book structures guide my experiments with stitching, papermaking, printing, laser cutting, and engraving. I approach these methods as possibilities to test, adapt, and bring into conversation. Making is a form of research: a material may resist an idea, or a structure may suggest an unexpected direction. I hope the resulting books reward close looking and invite readers to pause, reflect, and make connections of their own.
Learning through making
Teaching and research are part of my studio practice. Studying how a book is built opens new ways to think about sequence, space, and the relationship between form and meaning.
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Books in public collections
My artists’ books are held in public, academic, and private collections internationally, spanning Egypt, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Notable collections include the British Library, the German National Library, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Thomas J. Watson Library, the New York Public Library, Yale University, the Smithsonian Institution, MIT, the University of Iowa Libraries, Letterform Archive, and the Walker Art Center.