Background
Alexandros Skouras’ multidisciplinary practice includes visual essays and installations, brand identities, type design, book-making, posters and other printed matter. He also makes websites, videos, GIFs, furniture and music. Born and raised in Greece, he emigrated to the United States in 2009 and currently lives and works in Binghamton, NY.
Despite the apparent disparity of Skouras’ work, a common thread emerges: the impulse for a specific kind of process, often involving collections of things. Not in a static sense of a collector driven by a need to acquire — it is not about collecting, but about working with groups of things, their arrangement and how they react. The fascination lies in the act of collecting and grouping, involving research and investigation of historical material, collections of photographs, personal and public archives, political narratives, poetry, music, maps, spaces and places, transcripts, essays and diary jottings. As the sole editor, Skouras can facilitate organic connections between seemingly disparate elements through the editorial, curatorial, design and form-making processes.
Skouras also likes to work with his own things, recycling what is around him or inventing his own groups and collections of things, utilizing graphic design as a means of documentation. Many times, he engages in design projects with processes of reenactment and excavation at play while selecting visual and textual material to interact with each other, aiming to reactivate and relocate historical material and create new narratives and forms that unfold personal and collective stories. The overarching theme is the exhumation of diverse content to generate unique and meaningful connections.
Skouras showcased his work at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven in 2018 and presented his research at the main event of TypeCon in Minneapolis in 2019.
Education
- MDes, University of Illinois at Chicago
- Summer School, HGK/Basel School of Design, Switzerland
- BFA, Columbia College Chicago
- K-12 Teacher Preparation Program, Moreland University
Research Interests
- Visual communication
- Identity design
- Type design
- Printed matter
- The poster
- Installation
- The visual essay
- Print assemblage
- Book-making
